


A Backwards Fate

by Omegarose



Series: A Backwards Fate [1]
Category: Castlevania (Cartoon)
Genre: (i do know why it's cuz i wanted interactions with their families without them being dead), F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Play Fighting, Season 3 compliant, Time Travel, but i'm bad at delaying gratification so, i feel comfortable marketing it as that now, idk why i had to, it's a slowburn maybe?, mostly because i'm taking forever to write it, no beta we die like women, okay?, past trauma, reliving trauma in a way, slowburn, sorry but also shiny new fic ideas to work on keep popping up, the first chapter just doesn't start with them, the ot3 is a preestablish relationship, they're powerful ladies, trevor's sisters!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-03
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:27:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 24,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22535452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Omegarose/pseuds/Omegarose
Summary: A mysterious room with mysterious magic in the mysterious dungeon of a mysterious castle that even the mysterious owner didn't know everything about.AKA--magical plot device dungeon in Dracula's castle sends the trio back in time, in the bodies and places they were then. Far enough to save Trevor's family.Now what?
Relationships: Alucard | Adrian Tepes | Arikado Genya/Trevor Belmont/Sypha Belnades
Series: A Backwards Fate [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1633255
Comments: 723
Kudos: 958





	1. Torturing Our Boi, Naturally

Trevor woke up in a soft bed.

He was relaxed in a way that had his body struggling to react to his initial panic at waking somewhere where he hadn’t fallen asleep—that place, of course, being a creepy dungeon next to a magically appearing door that may or may not be malicious. Sypha and Adrian hadn't exactly been clear. The combination of things were odd enough to have him on alert. 

There were embers glowing in the hearth, and a series of faint creaks like someone was trying to maneuver quietly a few rooms away, and a large window to his left. The sky was pre-dawn-grey, and only a few higher boughs of trees were visible, meaning he was likely on the second floor, at least.

Maybe that wave of magic had knocked him out, and Sypha and Adrian carried him up to bed...but why not _their_ bedroom? In fact, this didn’t look like any bedroom in the castle, even if it did look strangely familiar. And why weren’t they with him, at least one of them, instead of lurking a few rooms away?

Uneasy, he automatically reached for the Morning Star coiled at his hip. When he met only thin fabric he realized he was wearing a nightgown. None of his weapons were on the bedside table. Sypha and Adrian wouldn’t have left him weaponless, they knew him to be paranoid and on-edge, even within the walls of the castle— _where he was not_.

As for the nightgown, he hadn’t worn one in years. Even since being a permanent residence of the castle and not being forced to sleep in his only set of clothes, Trevor would rather sleep naked or with only undergarments.

In his search for something to defend himself with, he came across a small dagger beneath the pillow.

It was his dagger, most certainly. It fit his hand perfectly and had the crest of the Belmont family on its hilt. It was the dagger he was first trained to defend himself with. A Belmont’s first weapon had always been presented like any normal child might receive a doll, with as much ceremony as their first steps. 

It had also been lost to the fire that took his home and family twelve years prior.

He suddenly recognized the room he was in. It had been his since he was eight, and had moved out of the “nursery” that he and his twin sister had shared since they were infants. Catherine had redecorated the room and it had become hers, and he was left in the smallest room at the farthest end of the hall.

Trevor took a sharp breath. 

Released it.

Took another breath.

What the fuck was going on?

Sypha had warned that the magic of the hidden dungeon had been old and deep, and Adrian had admitted that his father had taken possession of the castle almost five hundred years ago and still hadn’t known all of its secrets. Was the magic there primed to...what? Look into his memories and recreate the worst moment of his life?

If that was the case, though, Trevor should be outside and it should be closer to midnight than morning, and it should be snowing. He also shouldn’t have the free will to break the movements he had made before. He was never able to, not in these nightmares.

So what was this? An elaborate mind trick? Some sort of...interactive vision of a past he tried desperately to forget?

_((Or maybe, a small part of him thought, I really am back in the days before that fire. The normal aches from his accumulated injuries and scars were suspiciously absent, and his old dagger was much too small to fit so well in his should-be-grown-up hands.))_

Trevor slipped from the bed, bare feet making contact with the wooden floor. He shivered slightly, involuntarily.

He dressed quickly in clothes he knew were meant for the daily life of a Belmont—for the training, and movement, and practicality their every day demanded—rather than some of the more aristocratic pieces. His muscle memory directed him to the water basin heating by the hearth to wash his face, and some combination of memory and a long-forgotten habit had him smoothing down the bedding. He slipped on his house-shoes and tucked his dagger into his sleeve before leaving the room.

The hall was achingly familiar, lined with doors that lead to his sisters’ rooms. There were a few portraits on the wall of long-dead ancestors, and a few paintings he knew Gabrielle made in her free time. Used to make. Still might make.

This was the family wing of the house. Like no time had passed at all, not years of drinking himself into oblivion or sleeping out in the cold or repressing all memories of _home_ , he knew where everything was.

Louise's room was at the mouth of the hall, then Gabrielle's, then Colette's. Rounding around was Trevor’s, then Annette and Eleanore’s, then Catherine’s across from Louise. Trevor’s parents were on the landing. They would be the first line of defense if they had an intruder, Trevor realized now, as well as providing a barrier for children attempting to sneak out.

He skipped the squeaky floorboard and the creaky fourth step that lead to the main part of the house.

“Annette, is that you?”

Trevor froze halfway down the steps, fighting the urge to pull his dagger on his own mother. Or the memory of her, or whatever it was that was happening to him.

“Trevor? What are you doing creeping about so early?”

He turned to see Helaine Belmont standing at the top of the stairs like a spectre of the past, her dark hair braided over one shoulder and dressed in only a nightgown. She smiled softly at him, a little confused by her youngest. Trevor had been the type to have to be forcibly roused as a child, he recalled now. Usually Louise had been the one to pull him out of bed just as routinely as a daily chore.

Something horrible and bitter clawed its way up his throat.

“What day is it?” he asked, forcing the words to come.

“Wednesday, dear,” answered his mother, confusion giving way to concern. “Why?”

~~You all burn on a Wednesday night.~~

~~I am an orphan on Thursday.~~

~~The church wants us all _dead_. ~~

“What’s wrong Trevor?”

Why couldn’t he just say it? Was this the magic of the dungeon room, forcing a re-living where you feel like you could change things, but always lacked the ability to do so?

His mother was descending toward him, reaching out and despite himself he fell into her embrace. With the stairs and his twelve-year-old height, he was able to bury his face against her chest.

She spoke to him, carding her fingers through his hair. She murmured assurances, instructed him to breathe, told him everything was alright.

“You’re not real,” he choked out, even as he held onto her.

“Of course I’m real. Her voice was calm, and strong. “Just remember our check.”

“Your-your favorite-room-” he tried. “Your favorite room is the-the green parlor.”

“And your favorite weapon is the war hammer,” she answered evenly. And it had been, back when he was twelve and just being allowed to start specialized weapon training. If it was the day he feared it was, he should have been given his first lesson with the whip only a few weeks earlier.

Slowly his breathing slowed so that he wasn’t gasping for air like a drowned man. His mother’s arms remained around him. When was the last time he had been allowed just to exist like this? Drawing comfort without feeling as though he had to give some back? _Especially_ from anyone that wasn't Sypha or Adrian?

There was movement at the landing that caused him to jump.

It was Annette, looking just as she had before she died. Sixteen and always an early riser. She had their father’s curls and the green eyes of their mother, her hair pulled back and her silver staff in hand. Going for an early-morning warm-up in their training room or outside on the lawn.

“Morning, Mama. Trevor.” Her eyes lingered over Trevor, undoubtedly trying to suss out what was going on as she squeezed past them to get downstairs.

Their mother responded in kind, her lack of explanation enough to spur Annette on her way.

Once she had disappeared to the back garden, their mother gently asked, “What was all that about, dear?”

Trevor found himself searching for what to say. _Could_ he tell her? What would it accomplish, if he was nothing but a child?

“I-I...I think I might have…”

She remained silent, waiting.

“I-it was a nightmare, I think. So vivid it could have been real.”

“A memory?”

“A vision, maybe. I don’t know.”

Visions were not unheard of within their family, but they were rare and only came at the most dire of times.

She just hummed. “Let’s get something to eat.”

Trevor watched in a daze as his mother, still in her nightgown, shooed the cook away and began to prepare breakfast. The mug of tea she made for him sat before him, leeching warmth into his hands. He couldn’t bring himself to drink it.

One after another his sisters spilled in.

First was Colette, yawning, then Gabrielle with too much energy for someone freshly awake, then Annette done with training. Eleanor stumbled in with horrendous bedhead, Catherine right behind, trailed by Louise.

As soon as the last three entered, Catherine squeezed into Trevor’s chair beside him. If he hadn’t felt so far away he was certain he would cry at the press of his twin sister’s body against his side, a feeling he had thought he’d forgotten until he’d been abruptly reminded.

Catherine and him had shared a room long past they had to, and they did every lesson together. She used to be the person he told everything to, even the stupid crush he’d had on the gardener’s son.

“Didn’t have to drag you from bed today,” Louise teased, ruffling his hair as she passed.

He didn’t move, couldn’t answer. Their mother had to excuse him, telling them that he’d had a rather frightening nightmare. Catherine pushed herself, if possible, closer.

“Sticky rolls?” Pavel Belmont asked as he entered the now full kitchen. “What’s the occasion?”

Trevor seemed to wake up at the voice of his father. The scent of cinnamon and baking pastry was in the air. The cup between his hands was no warmer than the rest of the room. Catherine lined up against him knee to hip to elbow to shoulder. His mother still in her night clothes while everyone else was dressed. The dagger up his sleeve and his feet that didn’t quite touch the ground. His entire family that had been dead for over a decade standing all around him.

He folded in on himself, a sob falling from his lips unbidden. Catherine startled away to be swiftly replaced by their father.

“What’s wrong-”

“Trevor-”

“Is he-”

His sisters seemed to be trying to say something all at once, as Trevor gasped around his sobbing as everything hit him.

Their mother sternly hushed them and for a few moments all was silent aside from Trevor’s hitched breathes.

She was on Trevor’s other side, then, brushing his hair aside and wiping away the tears spilling down his cheeks.

“Now, then, I think you should tell us about that maybe-vision of yours, yeah?”

Trevor leaned into his father, feeling as his arms tightened just so around him at the prospect of a vision.

“The-the church. They’re gonna come tonight, with a mob. They’re gonna-gonna burn the house down, with-burn it with everyone inside.”

There was a gasp from someone, but Trevor was only picking up steam. It didn’t matter if this was only an illusion, it felt real—so real that he would never be able to live with himself if he didn’t try to save them.

“They’ll come after dark, in the snow. I-I snuck out, to see the first snowfall. I do it sometimes. I had to watch and listen—I couldn’t move I was frozen—and the fire burned for hours. I heard your screaming but they threw something on the fire—they barred the first floor windows and doors and stabbed Eleanore when she tried to jump from the second story—it wasn’t until the next morning when there was nothing left but ash that they pulled out the bodies. And I-I was left all alone in the woods and I knew everyone was dead. I stayed there for days, hoping someone else had gotten out but-”

“Shh, Trevor, it’s alright,” his mother soothed, something frayed in her voice. “Take a deep breath, dear.”

“We have to leave,” he said frantically, clinging to her wrist. “Before they come, we have to go before they-”

“We will.”

And just like that he slumped like a puppet without its strings.

Many things could still go wrong, of course. The mob would realize quickly that there were no screams coming from the house, or anyone trying to leap from the windows. They could track them, like they tried to track Trevor when they finally realized they were missing one of the children through the mess that was his family home and the bodies which also belonged to the servants. It would be easier to follow all of them immediately rather than him, alone, days later, even if he had been hungry and traumatized.

Hearing that they were aware, though, knowing that things would be different, made all the possibilities bearable.

His mother stood and Trevor saw the frightened faces of his sisters. Even Louise, the eldest, the one who never seemed to be thrown off by the world around her, was shaken.

“Breakfast time, I think,” their mother said with a small clap of her hands. “We have a busy day ahead of us.” 

Their father followed her instructions of securing everyone a fresh sticky roll, tense but not afraid like his children.

“Mother-” Colette began, holding tight to her fork.

“Don’t worry, there is a plan in place for evacuation. There are, of course, our safe houses across the continent, and other places for us to go. Eat. We will be alright now that we have the warning.”

Trevor was too stressed to care much about the strained silence, but he did miss Catherine taking up half his chair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find my main [here](https://omegros.tumblr.com/) and my side tumblr [here](https://fandumb-thoughts.tumblr.com/). Edits made on 8/6/2020


	2. Let Sypha Swear 2k20

Sypha woke with a gasp and a start, swiftly tumbling from the bunk in the Speaker wagon she had apparently been sleeping in.

She cursed up a storm because she fucking killed Dracula and had picked up the habit, Speaker wisdom on the matter be damned even if she was inexplicably with them again. 

She took stock of her body as she lay on the floor. She was going to have a rather nasty bruise on her elbow and a knot in the back of her head, from the feel of it, but she’d live.

“Child, where did you learn such language?”

Her grandfather looked at her from his own bunk, confused and clearly shocked at her outburst.

“Trevor and Adrian,” she said dismissively, looking down as she went to push herself up. She froze.

She was wearing the gray robes of a Speaker child, not the blue of the adults or the less unwieldy simple black clothing she’d taken to wearing in the past two years. Her body was also too small for the familiar space she knew should be more cramped, recognizing the personal touches from the wagon her grandfather lived in.

She hadn’t been anywhere near a Speaker caravan when she was last awake, least of all her grandfather’s. This time of year usually had their caravan further west, in warmer climes, a direction that she knew they had been heading last she heard from them. 

Besides that, she had fallen unconscious to a wave of magic.

“Trevor and Adrian?” her grandfather asked.

She looked up to him. He looked younger than he should—less lines from worry, a little more hair on his head. “Grandfather, something has happened.”

He came down from his bunk, even as Arn’s sleep-bleary face poked from the bed beneath. Arn was shockingly young, fifteen at the oldest, dark hair still noticeably running with undertones of red.

“What’s going on?” he asked. “Was that you cursing?”

“Go back to sleep, Arn,” their grandfather requested. “Outside with me, young one.”

“My name is Sypha,” she felt she had to say.

Arn’s mouth fell open. Names were not simply blurted out like that, especially not the First Naming. But this wasn’t Sypha’s First Naming.

She was Sypha of the Belnades caravan, Speaker, magician, savior of Wallachia and likely the entire fucking world, twenty-three years last spring, lover of Trevor Belmont and Adrian Tepes. The scholar from the prophecy of the Sleeping Soldier.

Apparently, inexplicably, an Unnamed child again.

“Well met, Sypha. Arn, go back to sleep.”

Arn nearly protested, leaning half out of his bunk, looking irritated to be missing whatever explanation Sypha would be giving for her strange behavior. Their grandfather’s stern look, however, was rare enough to immediately silence him.

It was winter, Sypha could tell immediately when they stepped outside, just like it had been for her. The wind was cold but not nearly as biting as she knew it could get in some places. There was no snow, or ice, but the grass was lackluster and the trees had the looks of somewhere south in the continent.

She settled on the ground, legs folded up to her chest. Her grandfather sat on the step, and she found herself leaning against his leg.

It had been months since she’d seen him last, and that had been more chance than anything. Her former caravan had made camp not far from the city of Pitesti when Sypha and Adrian had happened to be there for a rare sort of imported medicinal ingredients. When she’d heard of the nearby Speakers she had to stop in and had been delighted to find them to be her family.

She had never been away from them for longer than a few weeks to study with other Speaker caravans, before the prophecy. She had every chance to go back and stay—and she didn’t regret that she decided not to—but sitting here with her head on her grandfather’s knee was achingly nostalgic.

“I believe you have a story for me,” he said.

“I don’t know why I’m here,” she admitted. “I’m not even sure if this is _real_ or not. It might be the past, or just a figment of my imagination. Just before I woke up I was investigating a strange room filled with complex, unrecognizable magic, and now I am here.”

“I see,” said her grandfather. “From my perspective I can assure you that it seems to me like you are just my eleven year old grandchild, who woke suddenly in the night with curses I am nearly certain you never have heard. Though I doubt it will do little, I can also tell you that all this seems rather _real_ to me.”

Sypha let flames dance through her fingers held before her face. In part as a habit in places of darkness, but also because she knew her grandfather would be more likely to believe her story as truth if he were given proof. Her magic, at eleven, had taken extreme concentration and focus for even the smallest sparks. 

She used to sit at the edge of camp where it was most quiet for hours, trying to force the magic that came so easily to her now. Every spark had been a cause of joy—until the tinder she was attempting to light stubbornly wouldn’t burn. It was at the point the failure caused her to rage that she had to admit defeat, even if the rage fueled the spark into a small inferno that ate the tinder in seconds.

She was a Speaker, and Speakers were concise in their words and actions. Rage was not concise, it was quick and uncontrolled and brutal. The last thing _((hated, feared, shunned))_ Speakers needed was an escalator. It had been years before she realized that rage could be slow to rise, held tight and careful, and that brutality was powerful. As for escalation—she was a Speaker magician. She was never _not_ going to be persecuted.

“I pray that the future I lived will never come,” she confessed.

She told him of the murder of Lisa Tepes, the grief of Dracula when he learned of his wife’s demise. She spoke of the warning Targoviste had received in the aftermath, and the night hordes that followed when no one listened. She explained how she had come to meet Trevor and Adrian beneath Gresit—the hunter and the soldier to her scholar—and of their journey to kill Dracula. She mentioned how horrible the aftermath had been, even two years later, and all the three had been doing to help it while trying to heal and cope.

Until, at least, the room in Adrian’s dungeon saw fit to send them—or possibly just her—to this time. It hadn't felt like an Infinity Corridor, or at least the only other one she had encountered before, but it was the closest guess she had.

By the time she was finished the sun was pinkening the horizon. There was movement through the camp as adults fed the horses, and children were sent for water, and fires were tended to prepare morning meals. For a moment Sypha felt like her story might be no more than that; if the details she had kept to herself had not been so real and close to her heart it might have taken longer than a scattering of seconds for that the illusion to shatter.

“That is quite the tale, grandchild mine,” said her grandfather finally.

Sypha snorted. “You could say that, yes.”

“Do you think there is a purpose for you being here, or was the magic that sent you here really so wild and unpredictable that you don’t know?”

“Whether it was intended or not, I am going to stop the slaughter of thousands,” she declared resolutely, before she’d even comprehended the fullness of her grandfather’s question. 

She thought of Trevor and Adrian, standing beside her last she could recall. Were they, too, thrown into the bodies of their younger selves? Were they—in a future she left—trying to find where she had gone? Why now and here, if her task was just to stop Lisa Tepes from being killed nine years from now?

Sudden terror gripped her. If she were eleven, then Trevor was twelve, the age his family was turned on by the church and neighboring towns.

“The Belmonts!” she exclaimed, drawing a few eyes at the noise. She didn’t care. They would hear her story soon enough. “Do you know if they have been excommunicated?”

“We are far from the Belmonts’ usual hunting grounds of Wallachia,” her grandfather said. “News of them, even of such importance, would take weeks to reach us.”

Trevor—had he traveled back like she assumed _((hoped)) —_was either dealing with the aftermath of his family’s deaths or was in the process of trying to prevent them. She hoped for all of their sakes that it was the latter. For her people, for Wallachia, for the world, but also for Trevor. He deserved it.

And how would Adrian be faring, with his parents he so traumatically lost? It had been three years since Lisa Tepes died and about two since he killed his father, and he still could hardly speak of them. She knew his nightmares were still frequent, and that at times he would have fits of panic so severe he wasn’t able to tell what was real.

She hoped her boys would be okay without her, and without each other, wherever _((or whenever))_ they were.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so a bit shorter than Trevor's chapter! Writing this actually helped me figure out a few things to do with Sypha in the in-between before she and the boys reunite. (Any guesses?) 
> 
> Next chapter (hopefully coming out in the next couple weeks) will be poor Adrian.
> 
> You can find my main [here](https://omegros.tumblr.com/) and my side tumblr [here](https://fandumb-thoughts.tumblr.com/). Edited 3/14/2020 and 8/6/2020


	3. Oh My God Adrian Honey I'm So Sorry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tw panic attack

Adrian was dreaming, again, he figured.

Why else would he be waking in his childhood bedroom? It had been sealed a little under two years ago, along with the rest of the wing Adrian’s family had occupied in his youth. The only people who could open it were Adrian himself or an accomplished mage, like Sypha.

But Sypha wouldn’t reopen these rooms, nor would she bring him here. Given he last remembered a wave of unfamiliar, ancient magic thrown at Sypha, Trevor, and him in that mysteriously manifesting dungeon, he figured he was still unconscious.

As usual, knowing this didn’t calm his racing heart, or stop the trembling of his hands, or dismiss the memories--

His _father’s_ eyes,

So red,

And lost,

And vacant in a way that was _frightening_ ,

Even if Adrian had been on the receiving end of his sword,

What felt like only a scattering of weeks ago,

His _father’s_ blade carving a _mark_ on skin that Adrian had always thought _unblemishable_ ,

(That he knew without a shadow of a doubt wasn’t true now,

His arms, 

And legs,

And body,

Covered in the criss-cross burns from a _rope_ of _silver_ )

Even if he had been thrown into walls,

So viciously that his ribs _ached_ ,

And his lungs struggled to expand,

Shattered and _broken_ inside of him,

Less painfully,

And more physically,

Than what _else_ was _broken_ ,

Even if he had witnessed the results of his _father’s_ war on humanity, 

Bodies piling in the streets,

The stench of blood and decay permeating even the most remote forests and fields,

Following the roads and paths,

Linking villages by _massacre_ ,

But this was _his father **—**_

His _father_ who he never had reason to fear before,

His _father_ who’d tried to kill him in the hours after his _mother’s_ _death_ ,

And threw him into walls like he didn’t care if it _hurt,_

_Shattered,_

_Killed,_

Him,

And began a genocide against _one half_ of Adrian’s _heritage **—**_

_His father **—**_

Who only came back to himself in the _untouched_ shrine,

To the childhood that once-was,

_That hadn’t the chance to come to a natural end,_

With the realizing,

_“My boy, I’m killing my boy,”_

The mourning, 

_“Your greatest gift to me and I’m killing him,”_

The broken, 

_“I must already be_ **_dead_ ** _," **—**_

How he’d looked at him,

Falling forwards _onto_ the stake Adrian pushed through his chest,

The second one that evening,

Blood _drip drip drip_ -ing to the floor, 

Arm raised even as he withered to dust **—**

To what? **—**

Hold onto his only child in his final moments,

Even when all he’d done was push away?

Or was it a last,

Aborted attempt at retaliation,

A plea of life?

Or could it have been, 

To comfort Adrian, 

As the tears welled in his eyes?

**_He’d killed his own father—_**

Head rolling away and body _dissolving_ to dust,

The only evidence of his presence left,

The wedding ring that matched Adrian's _mother’s_ ,

 _Clattering_ to the stone floor,

And the thousands murdered,

And Adrian,

His _heir_ ,

**_He’d killed his own father—_**

Some far, distant part of Adrian noted that the bed he was in was not broken, the window unshattered, the scorch mark where Sypha had **_burned_ ** his father absent. Those far, distant parts refused to be acknowledged within his own cyclical mind.

**_He’d killed his own father—_**

Dracula was a spectre in this room,

Destined in death,

To be a constant reminder of what Adrian had done,

Hand outstretched,

Impossibly **—**

“Adrian, are you alright?”

He was dreaming, only dreaming,

But his dreams had never gone of script from the **—**

_“My boy, I’m killing my boy,”_

_“Your greatest gift to me and I’m killing him,”_

_“I must already be_ **_dead_** _,” **—**_

“Adrian, son, calm down, it was only a-”

His father’s hand came down on his shoulder,

And it wasn’t right,

His _father_ was _dead **—**_

Urgently,

_“Adrian” **—**_

As his _father_ sat on his _bed_ ,

And Adrian _flinched_ ,

Because he _killed_ him **—**

“Get away from me!”

And his _father_ recoiled **—**

**_His father who he’d killed—_**

And Adrian fled because he _needed_ Sypha and Trevor,

Because hadn’t been able to _finish_ it without them,

And he _needed_ them at his back,

And none of this was _right_ ,

Not like the normal fits,

That made him feel like he was back **—**

**_Killing his father—_**

They would be able to pull him out of this,

They would be able to _help **—**_

And his _father_ called out after him,

But Adrian was _fleeing_ ,

And he wasn’t pursued,

Because his _father_ was a _spectre **—**_

Adrian’s paws lead him to the room that had originally been a guest room,

Some distant eon ago,

That Trevor and Sypha had forced as _their_ own,

And _they_ had always meant _three_ ,

But the room smelled like _nothing_ ,

Even though _they_ had _slept there_ ,

Just the night before,

Shared a lazy morning _kiss_ ,

Sypha protesting the cold beyond _their_ room,

Adrian half asleep and relaxed,

Trevor trapped as _their_ pillow,

Despite his half-hearted complaints of the weight,

But the room smelled like _nothing **—**_

_And he needed them,_

And the lack of _their_ scent was distressing,

And the spectre of _his father_ was out there somewhere,

And Adrian wanted to _cry_ ,

But wolves couldn’t cry,

Not really,

So he curled beneath the bed,

That should smell of _them_ and _didn’t,_

Feeling _lost_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So....um....I wrote most of this in the past few hours when I should have been doing my readings for my 9am class tomorrow...it is now 11:30pm...
> 
> The style will (very much likely) not be repeated again, but hey I was honest with that one commentor on chapter one who I warned about my lack of writing consistency.
> 
> This was low-key inspired by a geraskier smut series (A Thousand Miles Verse, I believe?) that was written in a similar style.
> 
> Also, like, I warned you in the chapter title about the torment that I was gonna put Adrian through. This is the last major Moment for him, but there's still a bit of angst we gotta get through before we can get to the (promised!) fluff.
> 
> One last thing--I'm making this a verse because I'm planning on writing a "prequel" oneshot to sorta explain how they got in this situation, or at least give a bit of the domestic fluff, as well as a one-shot to give Dracula's perspective on this particular chapter.
> 
> [You can find my tumblr here!](https://omegros.tumblr.com) I post updates and some funny stuff about this verse!
> 
> Edit 3/14/2020 and 8/8/2020


	4. Trevor Just Needs a Drink(TM)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tw for mentions of brief implied past sexual assault, alcoholism, and death of a pregnant woman.

It wasn’t until a month later that Trevor and his family were able to rest.

They had been travelling nearly nonstop, all while trying to go undetected by the creeping fingers of the church. It wasn’t all so unfamiliar to a similar trip across the country he took two years prior, in his own time, though with significantly less night creatures. And, unfortunately, many more people. People were so much harder to deal with because they couldn’t just kill them and move along.

The scarcity of night creatures were probably for the best given Trevor’s current lack of finesse. He just didn’t have the strength or muscle-memory to wield his weapons the way he wanted to. He was better off than a regular person, but he’d be more of a liability than an asset at this point.

Part of the grueling pace was anxiety to reunite. Nine people travelling together would have been too obvious, so they had split into three groups **—** Gabrielle and Trevor with Louise; Colette and Annette with their mother; and Eleanore and Catherine with their father.

Trevor especially was worried. He was changing history **—** he’d had to admit that he was likely in the past, after nearly a month of living a seemingly normal divergence of events without any signs of an illusion breaking. It was disquieting that he had resigned himself so quickly to this fate, but there was none of the usual tugging in his gut warning him of danger. He felt...right in a way that being a twelve-year-old child more than a ten years in the past shouldn’t.

Still, he had no idea if destiny or God’s infernal plan or whatever chaotic underlying magic of the world would do in a reaction to Trevor’s interference. It would be a revival of his decade-long string of bad luck for him to have saved his family only for them to be picked off one by one through divine intervention.

Louise and Gabrielle seemed fine, at least. 

Donning peasant clothing and concealing their weaponry made travel easy enough. There were a few close scrapes in the larger cities they passed through as people questioned two young women and a young boy _((ugk, if that wasn’t a thing))_ travelling otherwise unattended. None of the encounters had led to violence, thankfully, though Trevor had to resort to his old method of distracting a few guards more than once.

_((He had no idea why a simple insinuation was enough to make Louise yell at him for hours on their trek to the next town, it wasn’t like he was planning on letting the man actually touch him, and she and Gabrielle had been right there had he tried anything. Not that Trevor wouldn’t have been able to handle it himself.))_

Their route should have been the quickest to the mountain cabin in the north, the safe house their parents decided they should head towards. It was one of the oldest of their properties, and one of the more remote. It was, theoretically, the least known one as such.

“Figure there’ll be any supplies stocked up?” Gabrielle asked as they approached the village at the base of the mountain their cabin resided on.

“Mother would never allow it to dip under the usual amount,” Louise dismissed.

“But will it be enough?” Trevor piped up. “Everyone else will have to live off it too, and the last thing we’d want to do is come back to this village so soon, and the next village is far enough that it’ll be a waste of a whole day to go there for provisions later.”

They both twisted to look at him. They’d been doing that a lot, whenever he said something that he probably wouldn’t have, had he done this the first time around. The first time around, though, he hadn’t lived through a decade on his own or the genocide against the human race. Both those things tended to leave one careful of where they were going to find their next meal.

"Have you been there before?" Louise asked.

Trevor had, actually, for a handful of weeks before the crippling loneliness and the lack of booze and the reminder that his family had been there before **—** had slept in those beds, had sat in those chairs, had existed within those walls **—** spurred him back to his wanderings. "No, but Mother and Father were talking about it."

“I suppose we could get a few perishables…” Gabrielle said, after a prolonged moment.

“Fantastic, more fucking things to carry,” Louise muttered under her breath. Then, louder: “It would save some time later. Of course, Father and Mother might very well have the same idea.”

“Unless they manage to get a cart up that trail nothing will spoil or go to waste,” Trevor said.

They looked at him with that same expression again.

“What? There’s nine of us.”

Louise finally looked away with a conceding expression of agreement to the factuality of the statement, otherwise blank of other discernible emotions. Gabrielle just stared harder until Trevor hunched his shoulders self-consciously. He would have to do better at acting like his old self. 

They reached the house just before nightfall, performed security checks, and fell into an exhausted sleep. The next day was spent taking inventory, cleaning, and doing some of the smaller repairs needed. Certain things would definitely need to be reinforced if they were to spend the rest of winter there, but for now it would do. Mother, Colette, and Annette arrived the next day, helping do much the same work, bearing their own additional supplies. Father, Eleanore, and Catherine arrived the next day.

With everyone accounted for and uninjured Trevor should have been able to rest easy, but he only fell into a nightmare.

He dreamed of Sypha with fire in one hand and ice in the other, and of Adrian with his fangs bared and his sword in hand. They were alone in the dark, separated even from each other. Trevor couldn’t see them both at once, the moment he faced one the other would be at his back.

He called out for Sypha, and when she didn’t react he tried to call to Adrian, but he didn’t seem to hear either. They looked vulnerable by themselves. It was so rare for the three to be alone in combat that Trevor could think of nothing but their weak spots that he knew as well as his own so that he could cover them.

Adrian was trained in combat but inexperienced. He put too much into his offense, not enough thought to his placement in the field. It wasn’t uncommon for enemies to surround him without realizing he’d dug his way into their flanks.

Sypha had raw talent on her side and little else, though her skills were building. She wouldn’t have much of a physical defense for if one of her spells failed her, which hardly ever happened, but if she was focusing on maintaining a larger spell she was left vulnerable. 

Trevor was the only one with enough experience and skill both to direct Adrian about the battlefield, and the one best suited to keep an eye on their mage while Adrian went after the heart of the problem. It wasn’t that he doubted their skill **—** far from it **—** but he still worried that they didn’t even seem to have each other in the inky blackness.

He woke with a start, slightly queasy by the feeling of helplessness left over from the dream. 

God, he needed a drink.

Only, he didn’t. He had no craving for it, for almost the first time that he could remember. It was a burden he hadn’t realized he’d carried, the constant thirst for something that even a full night of booze would never be able to quench.

But he knew what bliss a drink would bring **—** the quieting of his thoughts, the muffling of his pains, the dizzying relief accompanying the first drop that touched his tongue **—** and he didn’t know how much longer he’d be able to last under the constant deluge of what-could-have-been without at least a little of the familiar numbness.

“Trev?” Catherine mumbled. Louise shifted and groaned as she was roused. They were sharing the largest bed as they were the ones that had to squeeze three people in.

“S’nothing,” he excused immediately, but something _had_ woke him. Someone had just gone outside, and someone else was moving through the house.

Louise had clearly heard it too. “It’s just Colette again. She hasn’t been feeling well.”

Trevor frowned. Colette had seemed fine to him for the past two days, but perhaps he had misjudged after the gaping absence.

“Where are you going?” Catherine asked as Trevor got up.

“Won’t be able to sleep again. Nightmare.”

Louise made a noise that was half questioning half understanding and Catherine wormed her way into the warm spot that Trevor left behind.

There were hushed voices from the main room, now. Annette and Gabrielle were huddled by the stove, not noticing him as he crept from the bedroom.

“She’s throwing up again?” Gabrielle asked, wringing her hands. She had been sharing a bed with Colette.

“Has been nearly every morning,” Annette responded. Either she had woken at the noise or was just waking early as she normally did.

“Is...do you think-”

Annette looked grim. “She hasn’t bled. Mother noticed, but she doesn’t know about the sickness.”

 _((Oh fuck. Missing bleedings, vomiting in the mornings **—** and it was clear they knew it. It had only been a month so it was possible that it was more recent but unlikely. Colette had been...when the fire **—** he was to be an uncle and he hadn’t even known until _ _now **—**_ _))_

“Colette’s-” Trevor said, startling his sisters.

“She’s fine,” Gabrielle was quick to assure.

“Just a little sick,” Annette said.

“But you said-”

“Shh!” Annette quickly crossed the room, holding her hand over his mouth. She looked to the room where their parents slept until she could be certain they weren’t awake. “Nothing is wrong. Leave it.”

Trevor glared. This wasn’t nothing. It was _far_ from nothing. Colette was pregnant and their family had little else other than a small cache of weapons and this little cabin in the mountains. The church was after them and everyone was potentially hostile.

Colette came inside, pale and shaky. She looked alarmed to be confronted by three of her siblings staring at her. “I’m just….going to head back to bed.”

Trevor pulled out of Annette’s grip and stormed off to get dressed. He was going to the town past the mountain, the route his father took. But Trevor hadn’t been there yet and he’d cover the Belmont crest like they’d done the entire trip there. 

_((He couldn’t stop thinking about another Belmont, a babe. If Colette hadn’t died the first time around the child could’ve lived to be eleven. Stamped from existence before Trevor even knew to grieve for them.))_

He needed a drink. Just...just a few drinks so that he didn’t have to be surrounded by these aching not-memories. Even if this redo was a blessing, it was a blessing that _hurt_. 

He just needed to collect himself. Just a day to walk and think, and a drink. Then he’d be fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant to post this at like 2am but I still got it out this weekend at least lol. Not super happy with it...but it's necessary to the story so here it is I guess.
> 
> Read the next fic in the verse (Right in the Present) for the trio together in the day leading up to their time travelling to the past. Super fluffy and domestic!
> 
> [You can find my tumblr here!](https://omegros.tumblr.com) I post updates and some funny stuff about this verse!
> 
> Edited 3/14/2020 and 8/8/2020


	5. Sypha Figures Out the Plan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> spoilers for season 03

In the first month of being in the past, Sypha learned that her caravan was in Italy set to make passage over the mountains for the winter within the week of her arrival.

Initially, she had wanted to make haste to Wallachia **—** alone or with a small group, to make travel quicker **—** but came to realize that her location wouldn’t make much of a difference in finding Adrian and Trevor.

For one, it was hardly safe for her to travel alone as a battle worn adult, much less as a child. It would be cruel to threaten to go alone as it would undoubtedly force the hand of a few of the adults to come along, and their lifestyle was not suited to the winters of Wallachia. They also didn’t deserve her wild goose chase, especially not without the relative safety in the numbers of a caravan.

Secondly _((and of a greater importance, at least in her mind))_ there was the matter of where she could _find_ Adrian and Trevor.

No one in living memory knew where Dracula’s castle was. Lisa Tepes had only succeeded in tracking it down with the aid of a withered, former vampiric consort who had told no one else and passed not long after. All that was known was that it was in the mountains, somewhere in Wallachia. And that was if he hadn’t moved it.

Adrian could always come to her, but where would they meet aside from the Belmont hold where the castle had been stuck in their time? The church would have either succeeded in killing the Belmonts _((hopefully once more sparing Trevor the same fate))_ or drove them away. Activity in the ruins would likely be seen as signs of witchcraft and heresy. And that was only if Adrian could get away from his parents in order to _maybe_ find her.

Trevor, of course, was _somewhere_ in Wallachia desperately avoiding the church, either with his family or by himself. He could be in any number of the safe houses he’d offhandedly mention over the years, only a few of which Sypha felt confident that she could find.

It pained her to admit that it might be best to go about seeking them out when her caravan next went to Wallachia.

Besides, she was certain that Adrian and Trevor were fine. She didn’t know how, but she knew that she would know if they needed her. They were fated to be together, and one way or another they would be.

She had to admit, to herself, that it wasn’t _urgent_ that she found them. No matter how much she wanted to. This wasn’t like the genocide against humanity, or the messy aftermath. No one needed them to act now, other than maybe Trevor’s family. And he was more than capable of handling that on his own.

“Regretting your decision to stay with us, grandchild?”

Sypha twisted to look at her grandfather, backlit by the morning sun. 

Their caravan was trundling along in the direction of the remains of an old castle, abandoned and crumbling. It was a common place for Speaker caravans to make rest, and many were in Spain for the winter. They would likely come across one or two at the ruins, and spend a few days exchanging new stories and retelling old ones.

“It would be much too late for that now,” she answered. They were already across the Alps, and the mountains would be snowy and difficult to cross back over. Her decision had been made within the first few days of arriving in this time, and it had been made up.

Her grandfather fell into step with her. “That does not stop you from thinking of the future you told.”

“The future is my past, it will never be the present for anyone here,” Sypha said, anger biting the corners of her words. “It is the doing of such that occupies my thoughts.”

“You need not bear that burden alone.”

Sypha snorted. She had only told her grandfather the entirety of her story, as of the moment. He had assured the rest of their caravan that nothing was the matter, and of some of what she claimed, but they were suspicious and fearful. Even Arn looked at her oddly, scrutinizing her. Even when all she was doing was helping carry the firewood, or unload a wagon, or petting one of the horses.

“Fear does not last long among our people,” her grandfather reminded her. “They just don’t...fully understand. All they know is that you are acting differently, and that your explanation seems impossible.”

Sypha had been mulling over the impossibility of her situation as she’d traveled. Though she hadn’t heard of anyone in a situation quite as hers, she had first hand experience with those in similar.

Saint Germaine and the Infinity Corridor came to mind. He had said they could take one through time and space, to different worlds and realms. He himself had experienced many of the impossibilities made possible by the Infinity Corridor. Though he had not mentioned anything about the changing of appearances when travelling through the Corridor, he had mentioned its endless mysteries that no one person could hope to understand.

“I think I might know how I am here,” Sypha admitted. “And I think I will tell my story when we reach the ruins. I have just yet to...formulate how I wish to tell them. The time that I lived is….panic inducing for many.”

Her grandfather chuckled. “Then I look forward to hearing your story, grandchild mine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that was incredibly short, and I feel kinda bad about leaving Sypha out. But in her next chapter she's gonna be a BAMF!
> 
> In terms of time-line, this is taking place the same morning that Trevor's last morning was.
> 
> [You can find my tumblr here!](https://omegros.tumblr.com) I post updates and some funny stuff about this verse!
> 
> Edits made 8/8/2020


	6. (Somewhat of) The Last of the Adrian Torture Fucking Finally

Adrian didn’t know if he’d had a worse few weeks.

The two month or so he’d been alone after the death of his father was a sure contender, though he had exhausted himself into distraction in his efforts towards preserving the Belmont hold. And though the ghosts of his past haunted him, at least he _knew_ that they were no more than spectres.

His mother’s murder wouldn’t count, either, nor the following attempt on his own life by his father’s hand, because he had been in a healing sleep for an entire year.

Even the indistinguishable amount of time after Taka and Sumi, before Trevor and Sypha came home, was better than Adrian’s current situation because he was aware in a way he wasn’t then. The blurring and fuzziness of days passing him by was preferable to...everything he was dealing with now.

He was living among his deceased parents, age only ten, forcing himself to hide his discontent from them.

He knew they were suspicious. He had been relatively carefree at this age, he knew, and the mood shift must have been obvious.

He just couldn’t bring himself to face them.

He brushed off their concern, and spoke as little as he could, and buried himself in the continuation of his studies in a bid to pass time. He hadn’t slept in any of the bedrooms regularly, preferring to fall asleep in increasingly obscure nooks and crannies. He took most of his meals at odd hours and forewent blood altogether. He fled when he heard anyone approach **—** be they servant, rogue creature, or vampire.

He held no illusion that he was hidden from his father, he knew that he would be able to find him within minutes if he wished to, though he hadn’t sought him out yet. Adrian figured it was only a matter of how soon his mother would insist on an intervention.

There was just something to seeing his parents, or a passing vampiric royal, or a familiar servant when he wasn’t expecting it. It made him feel sick with all the emotions they brought: panic, elation, depression, and fear.

He tried to leave the castle, just once.

He didn’t know exactly what he was planning on doing, but his anxiety over Trevor and Sypha hadn’t allowed him to stay idle. His father all but appeared next to him before he’d traveled more than half an hour.

“Where are you going?” he had asked.

“To the village,” Adrian answered. It had always been somewhere he’d been allowed to go, and alone since he was quite young, and it was somewhat strange for his father to stop him. Unless he was just worried about him.

“That’s not a good idea, at least for awhile.”

“Why?”

“The church turned on the Belmont family a couple weeks ago. Like the cockroach infestation that they are, they all survived the burning of their house and are somewhere in the country. I would feel better if you weren’t alone.”

Adrian was greatly relieved to hear of Trevor’s family, and noted with some amusement at the difference in tone from the first time his father was informed of the Belmont house fire. He had somewhat of a soft spot for the tenacity, honor, and otherwise respectability of the family, and had been upset that the humans had so bluntly struck them out.

Adrian’s following week was a bit better, knowing Trevor was safe, but worse at the same time as his confinement was solidified. He could not leave, not even for a momentary respite.

It was the night before the full moon when his parents finally confronted him.

The increased sunlight reflecting onto the earth left him in an even more dore mood than normal, and threw off his already terrible sleeping pattern. The power that he drew from the night itself, dampened as it was, made the hunger and _thirst_ pains from his skipped meals all the more known. He’d resolved to spend the night curled up in the rafters of what might have once been a fine ballroom, tucked high in one of the many spires, waiting until his father slept before venturing out for food.

The door creaked open, and Adrian immediately shrunk back into the shadows, pulling his blanket tighter around his shoulders.

“Adrian, baby, are you in here?” his mother called, looking around the sheet-covered, dusty furniture as if she might spot him. His father was at her side, and his eyes immediately found Adrian, red meeting gold.

Adrian didn’t move. He knew that it was childish to hope that his problems would vanish just because he didn’t acknowledge them, but he couldn’t help himself.

His mother traced the path of his father’s gaze, coming to rest over his form that would likely be little more than a shadow.

She smiled, bright and wonderful, and something in Adrian’s chest broke.

“Come on down,” she invited, pulling off a sheet from a nearby bench. Dust puffed in the air, sending her into a sneezing fit. Adrian still didn’t move.

“Don’t make me get you down,” his father threatened with the same air of scolding a misbehaving child. Adrian supposed that wasn’t all that far from the truth.

With great reluctance Adrian slunk down from the rafters, the blanket still wrapped around his shoulders. He knew he was half covered in dust, and that his hair hadn’t been combed or washed in days, and his skin had an unhealthy pallor from the lack of blood. Still, his mother took his hand and drew him down on the bench beside her.

“ _We_ need to talk to you,” she said, emphasis on the _we_ , a clear look directed at his father.

With great awkwardness his father sat on a dusty stool just slightly too short for his immense height.

His mother turned back to him, smoothing his hair. “Is there something you want to tell us?”

Words of denial stuck in his throat as he leaned into her side instinctively, wanting to cry at the warmth. Through all the layers of fabric she (hopefully) wouldn’t notice how cold he was and realize he had been neglecting his health.

“Adrian, baby, you’ve been acting strange ever since….your nightmare a few weeks ago,” she said carefully.

He hunched his shoulders up, looking at the floor.

“But it wasn’t just a nightmare, was it?” The way his father said it made it seem like less a question and more a statement.

“No.” His voice cracked, after days without speaking. “It wasn’t.”

His father leaned forward, blood-red eyes piercing.

“I think I stumbled across, or rather through, and Infinity Corridor.”

His father sat back, lips parting slightly in surprise before his expression locked down. There was a harsher glint to his eye, fangs purposely displayed in a way that wasn’t quite hostile but was definitely nothing like the father he had known for the past month.

But it was nothing compared to what worse things Adrian had seen from his father.

“Vlad,” his mother admonished. She’d noticed his shift in behavior, too, then.

“Where or when are you from,” he asked lowly, ignoring his wife for the time being.

“When,” Adrian whispered, shying away from his mother’s arms. If his father was unhappy with what Adrian had to say there was no telling what he would do to the perceived threat against her. “Not all so far, but-”

“Did you replace our Adrian, or did you switch with him,” his father interrupted.

Adrian flinched away from his mother, horrified at the concept. To imagine a ten-year-old him in the time that he had lived...but that wasn’t possible. If it had happened, he would have likely stayed in the grown-up, scarred body he clearly didn’t have. Or-or he would _know_ , somehow or another, he _would_.

His mother didn’t follow his movement, an assessing look on her face.

“I replaced him!” Adrian exclaimed, hotly, temper getting away from him. “I wouldn’t subject _anyone_ to the future I was in, much less myself!”

His father lost some of his underlying anger, settling back semi-comfortably. “How many years?” he asked.

“Twelve years,” Adrian answered stiffly. It was hardly any time at all for a vampire, or maybe a dhampir with a few more decades of experience, but for a human it was enormous. He could tell by his father’s glance at his mother that he was all too aware of what the difference meant.

How was Adrian supposed to explain his mother’s death, without his father flying into a rage against the church that was to kill her? How could he tell his mother that he had borne his father’s _mark_ across his chest from when he attempted to end his life? How could he tell her that his father had disregarded her love of humanity, had gone against her life’s purpose to preserve life, and had so callously ignored her final wishes? How could he tell either of them that _he_ had been the one to put an end to his father’s reign of terror? That he’d _killed him_.

“What happened?” his mother asked, reaching for him once more.

“You died,” he choked out, and it was enough.

Her arms folded around him. He let himself fall into the embrace, holding tight. He saw his parents lock eyes over his head before his father was there, too, kneeling on the floor, arms wrapped around the both of them.

This was the father Adrian remembered from his childhood, the one who was all but dead after the loss of his wife. This wasn’t the shadow of the man who struck Adrian with the intent to kill, or the one who orchestrated the deaths of thousands, or the one who welcomed his own demise.

This was the mother Adrian had always looked up to **—** a strong willed doctor, a caring mother, full of light and love. She was not another tragic example of the failings of the church, nor a martyr for the cause of defeating the one who she called husband, nor the first in an inevitably long list of those that Adrian would outlive.

Adrian wasn’t the same person that his parents remembered, but neither were they.

This was a second chance, for all of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this was definitely a couple days late, but in my defense I'm living at home right now and my dad likes to keep us super busy on weekends with chores and things. I also just moved all of my stuff out of my dorm and have to figure out how to deal with all of it lol, so depending I might post an extra chapter for the week.
> 
> In writing this I came up with another concept for the "extras" in this verse. What if Adrian was wrong about that replaced-not-swapped thing? Three confused kids snowed into the castle for the winter and learning to like each other? Idk I might write a little bit for that.
> 
> [You can find my tumblr here!](https://omegros.tumblr.com) I post updates and some funny stuff about this verse!
> 
> Edits made 8/8/2020


	7. This Boy is Hungover

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tw underage drinking, mentions of death of a pregnant woman

Trevor felt like utter shit.

He had slept on the ground the night before, passing out at some point during his walk home, later than he’d been planning. Judging by the hammer going on the inside of his skull, he’d drank more than he meant, too.

A thin layer of snow dusted his cloak as he pushed his stiff limbs into standing. He figured it was only morning by an hour or two by the weak sunlight.

How much had he drank?

He’d reached the village by midday, that he knew. The tavern owner had been reluctant to give him anything, for a while, but he’d said he was older and offered up coins until she’d given in. The first few mugs had gone down smoothly enough, but just as he reached the point where the fuzziness of intoxication began to numb him enough he could bear to slow down, an intense dizziness overtook him.

He hadn’t gotten that drunk that fast on just ale since he was fourteen.

...and his body was twelve, at the moment.

He probably stayed for a few more, might’ve eaten something the tavern woman all but forced on him, definitely started heading back later than he’d intended.

It’d been dark by the time he was trudging up the gentle slope of the mountain, that he was certain of. He didn’t remember when he’d fallen and decided to stay there and sleep, but he did remember leaning back against a tree and thinking “Sypha and Adrian are going to kill me.”

Finishing the journey that morning he was sure the sentiment wasn’t unwarranted, though with his mother as the would-be-murder.

It was only about an hour's walk **—** meaning he’d made decent progress the night before **—** before he neared the cabin.

The indication of such?

Eleanore slamming into him and pinning him to the ground.

The world spun in a terrible way and his stomach lurched warningly.

“Where the fuck have you been?” she asked with a lazy sort of interest.

He groaned in response.

She stood up off of him, letting him roll over and dry heave **—** once, twice **—** then sat up on his knees.

Eleanore was peering at him with remarkable more attentiveness than before. “Are you _hungover_?”

“Maybe,” Trevor said. It was an arduous process to get his feet back under him.

Eleanore laughed in a way that conveyed both disbelief and anger. “Mother’s going to _kill_ you. What the hell, Trevor, we’ve all been looking for you **—** of all nights you ran off, it had to be before the full moon-”

Trevor winced at that. He hadn’t realized the full moon was so close.

“On top of everything else!”

Trevor fell into step beside her. If he tilted his head right and looked through the trees he could see the smoke from their chimney.

“Seriously, though, what the fuck?”

He shrugged. He wasn’t about to explain the time travel, or about the wrenching pain he felt every time he looked at one of his family members, or about the aching emptiness and worry that all but consumed him every time he thought of a certain Speaker mage or son of Dracula. He couldn’t tell her about the relief he’d felt when he’d finally had that ale **—** the mental break he’d needed before he himself broke down.

“Needed to think. Got stupid,” he finally said in the pointed silence.

Eleanore huffed. “No shit. Mama was just about to send out search parties, if I or Annette didn’t spot you on one of the trails.”

Search parties were a tad extreme, in Trevor’s opinion. Maybe if he hadn’t been back by nightfall, or if they couldn’t find him in either of the villages.

Then again, he was twelve and their family was excommunicated for consorting with demons **—** an instant death sentence as far as anyone was concerned.

Eleanore gripped the sword hanging at her waist, fiddling with it more than preparing to fight something.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen Papa so upset before,” she said, glancing around furtively like he would be right behind a rock, ready to jump out and yell, which he _never_ did. 

Trevor could only recall him raising his voice a handful of times, only once directed at one of his children. It was after Louise wasn’t paying full attention to Trevor and Catherine while they played near the river. He had been maybe five at the time and didn’t remember much, aside from his father pulling out a sopping wet Catherine and yelling at Louise. He was pretty sure their father apologized quickly, though, because he distinctly remembered Catherine, Louise, and himself crying and hugging their father.

Trevor couldn’t stop the rise of some sort of bitter emotion. “Was he more mad at me or Colette?”

Eleanore stumbled over her own feet, quickly recovering. “Oh. You know?”

“I’m a dumbass, not stupid,” he retorted.

Her eyebrows raised further before she snorted out a laugh. “That’s fair. Gabrielle and Annette weren’t exactly being subtle when they were talking yesterday.”

“You heard that, then.”

“Annette woke me up when she was getting ready. She usually does.”

Even though Annette was probably the lightest on her feet out of all of them, except maybe Gabrielle, they had all been trained to be constantly aware of their environment.

They were nearing the house, now.

“She told everyone at about noon, yesterday,” Elanore said. “She was pretty sure you knew and ran off because of it. And Mother was pretty close to figuring it out, anyways.”

Before Trevor could answer, Eleanore grabbed his wrist and pulled him towards the house, calling out, “I found him!”

Louise, Annette, and Catherine **—** all in the front of the house **—** immediately looked in their direction. Trevor was stumbling more than he was proud to admit, but it was still better than actually falling. His sisters were whispering to one another, which, rude, he was right there.

Then their mother was storming out of the house, wearing trousers like she only did when she was on her way to confront a creature of the night. “Trevor Belmont!” she bellowed.

Eleanore let go of his wrist and hurried away to the sidelines, with the rest of their sisters who followed their mother from the house along with their father.

“Where were you?” his mother demanded, taking Trevor by the shoulders and roughly patting him down for injuries, his father falling in right behind her.

“Town,” he answered shortly, head spinning.

“Town? Town! Without telling anyone where you were going, stealing away int he early morning, spending the night away?”

“Uh-yeah? I meant to come home. Left too late, fell asleep in the woods.”

“The full moon is _tonight_.”

“I didn’t know that,” he grumbled, focusing desperately on not throwing up on his mother’s shoes.

Her eyes narrowed. He spun to the right and threw up in the thorn bush.

“Oh, you didn’t,” Gabrielle gasped.

Trevor swayed on his feet but managed to steady himself without grabbing onto anyone else.

“What the hell were you thinking,” his father thundered, brown eyes flashing behind his spectacles. The same brown eyes that Colette, Eleanore, and Catherine shared. The eyes that were all struck from existence in Trevor’s time. The eyes that might have been passed down to the baby Colette was never able to have.

Trevor glared at the ground, forcing down what was definitely another wave of vomit and in no way a lump caused by the emotion that also wasn’t causing tears to prick at his eyes.

“I-you all were going to die,” he said quietly. “And-and Colette-”

It was dead silent. His parents didn’t say anything, his sisters fell silent from their whispering, even the birds weren’t singing.

“I just didn’t know, before,” he finished weakly.

His father let out a shaky sigh. “Okay. Okay, but you can’t just run off like that. You can’t _drink_ and fall asleep in the cold.”

“I know,” he said. Because he did. 

How often had Sypha drilled into his head that he had to at least tell them where he was going, or at least how long he’d be gone, no matter what? How many times had Adrian nagged him about being responsible with his drinking if he was going to do it?

_((God, he missed them so much.))_

His mother cupped the side of his face in one hand. “Don’t think you’re not still in trouble, but right now let’s get you inside and warmed up.”

Trevor shuddered with the effort it took not to cry, his mother’s arm warm and a forgotten-familiar sensation, his father’s hand steady between his shoulder blades. His sisters began to talk again, laughing and whispering and going about their morning training.

For as much as he missed Sypha and Adrian, he also missed this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I'll probably include a further detail on appearance at some point, but I'm pretty bad at including physical description, but it's important to me that you know I imagine:
> 
> Louise (23) as basically a self insert at least in terms of behavior, I don't know about appearance, but she's got her mom's green eyes  
> Gabrielle (21) as super artsy and a graceful dancer, the only one beside Trevor with the Belmont blue eyes  
> Colette (19) about as tall as adult-Trevor and a big strong lady, she's got their dad's brown eyes  
> Annette (16) is small but incredibly deadly, curly hair that's about shoulder length, mom's green eyes  
> Eleanore (15) again not sure on appearance but she's got dad's brown eyes  
> Catherine (12) idk on appearance but she's also got dad's brown eyes and looks pretty similar to Trevor
> 
> [You can find my tumblr here!](https://omegros.tumblr.com) I post updates and some funny stuff about this verse!
> 
> Edits made 8/8/2020


	8. Sypha Displays How Much of a BAMF She Is

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cw non-graphic animal death, blood, gore and also misgendering

Speakers rarely travelled at night.

It was good luck to start a journey in the night, stealing away before their welcome soured and they were driven from the village or town they had made rest at, but travelling at any other point of the journey in the dark was bad luck. Most especially on arrival to a new place. It was only common sense, sedentary people were suspicious of them at the best of times, never mind if a camp of them appeared in the night.

It was superstitious of Sypha to be worried that they were concluding their journey to the ruins well into the eve. There would only be more Speakers to greet them, if any at all.

It would be fair, though, for her to remain on edge due to the full moon hanging low in the velvet sky.

The magic was strong, tonight. All except for the strange power drawn from the Other, like the forged hellbeasts from Sypha’s time.

All natural magic—elemental magic—were all alive in the light of the full moon’s glow: the moon, the sun, the wind, the earth, the waves, the fire, the life, the storm. Even the magic of the absence—the magic of shadows—most known within vampires was close at hand.

Sypha was open to all of it, even the ones that she could not use. It sang in her blood and bones, danced between her fingers. The surge of power was almost enough to drive her to overconfidence. Before the genocide, she might not have stopped herself.

But she _had_ lived through a war on humanity, featuring not only the Otherly magic of Hell itself, but also all of its allies. Or, at least, the usually hidden creatures of the night that took advantage of the chaos of the world of men.

She was on high alert, refusing to retire to the insides of wagons like most of the Unnamed _((which she wasn’t, anymore, despite her lack of proper Naming ceremony as of yet))_ , elderly, or otherwise unwell. She walked quickly and all but stood still in turns to watch the perimeter of their ever-moving caravan. She couldn’t remember if this had happened the first time around, and didn’t particularly care if it had and gone by uneventfully.

She could feel the eyes of her people on her as she patrolled, but she paid them no mind. There was unease due to the general bad luck of the timing of their travel, but they weren’t being cautious. Not properly.

_((She tried desperately to quell her automatic reaction to call them all oblivious idiots that walked blissfully through the gates of Hell. Maybe Adrian and Trevor had influenced her more than she liked to think.))_

“What are you looking for?” Arn asked her, catching her shoulder as she tried to walk past him and another Speaker named Nehir. Arn was frowning, put off by Sypha’s behavior or concerned, she couldn’t tell, but Nehir just directed a politely puzzled expression in her direction.

“Creatures of the night,” Sypha answered promptly. Even though most of the monsters they might meet weren’t necessarily ones that drew their powers from the night itself, all creatures that hunters like the Belmonts might go after fell under the term.

“Creatures of the night? Sypha, you don’t have to be the one looking out for things like that.”

“It’s a full moon,” she snapped, startling him. She’d nearly forgotten how rare it was for her people to raise their voices in anger, until she had been forced to rejoin them. “Magic is close at hand, the true dark creatures are irritated by the reflected sunlight, and the elements are overbalanced. And do _you_ see anyone else paying attention? We are wide open to an attack.”

Though taken aback, Arn looked ready to argue. Nehir stepped in before he could. “Do you really think we’ll be attacked?”

“It’s better to be cautious than dead,” she answered, an adage of Trevor’s. She sped up, intent on making it to the front of the caravan again. There was only an hour or two more before they would come to the ruins and relatively safe shelter.

She wished not for the first time that Adrian and Trevor were with her. Adrian would be horribly grumpy—what she’d told her cousin was true, though the thing about the sunlight reflecting from the moon was less about sapping strength than it was disrupting the vampire’s sleep patterns. The sun-magic was in direct opposition to their natural magic of the night, and quite draining. Adrian had it particularly rough, with his conflicting nature’s war on when it felt “right” for him to sleep. 

He could spend one morning waking at the rooster’s crow and the next buried beneath the covers until noon, or stay up into the early hours before sunrise or fall into exhaustion at only an hour after dark. It waxed and waned with the moon, depended on his appetite, mood, and restedness, and occasionally twisted on him out of nowhere.

One particularly memorable full moon while they had been on the road, he had hardly managed to sleep for several days, and was hungry from the rough travel. It was early on into their knowing of each other, Trevor and Adrian still cautious around each other and herself despite sharing the warmth of the back of the wagon when it wasn’t their turn to be on watch. He had been startled and so on-edge that he’d postured and hissed at a particularly bold squirrel going after their scraps.

Trevor and her had laughed until they were all red in the face—Adrian from embarrassment, them from inability to draw a full breath without descending into another peal of laughter. She’d made it up to him by going to sit beside him, spreading the spare fabric of her robe over his lap and leaning into his side. She’d made a comment of how cold he was, and how cold she herself was in the cold of the autumn evening, that Trevor had sighed like it was a great chore and inserted himself between them, sharing his body heat and cloak.

She was only a few wagons up from where she’d left her cousin and Nehir when someone screamed from behind her.

She spun on her heel, sweeping up the front of her robe in one hand as she ran towards the scream—unlike anyone else. They stopped where they were, pulling horses to a nervous halt and edging closer to the sides of the wagons. One or two made an attempt to stop her, all which she ignored or easily evaded.

It was at the very end of the caravan that Sypha saw who screamed. He was young, not quite twenty, named Artur, and he was visibly shaken. His sister, Bea, was holding onto one of his arms and one of the elders was at his other side, peering off into the murky darkness of the brush surrounding either side of the road.

“What did you see?” Sypha asked.

The elder, Gianne, gave her a warning look but Artur either didn’t notice it was Sypha asking or didn’t care.

“Wolves—wolves with glowing red eyes.”

“How many?” she pressed, urgently, gaze roving their surroundings for what were undoubtedly werewolves.

“Two,” Artur said, faintly. “I was just going to relieve myself when I saw them following us.”

They hadn’t intended to be spotted when they were, then. Unless their pack had gone on ahead (unlikely, with as close of a watch Sypha had been keeping) or they were alone. She trusted the light of the moon and Artur’s eyes enough to trust that it was likely only a pair.

And, if they were anything except a freshly bitten _were_ , they had the brains to know they should act quickly while the Speakers were still caught off guard.

This was usually the point where Trevor would step in and start barking orders, but he wasn’t here to do that and Sypha knew well enough where she wanted everyone to go. Primarily _inside_ , though with everything packed that would be almost impossible on such short notice. There was also the issue of the size of the caravan—relatively small by Speaker standards, but still too big to easily communicate with.   
  
“Bea, I need you to run to the front. Tell everyone you see to get children and infirm that aren’t already inside _in_. Tell everyone else to gather around the horses and prepare to fend off a pair of werewolves.”

Bea, either shaken like her brother or spurred by the command of Sypha’s voice listened, running back the way Sypha had come.

Gianne was looking at her, mouth hanging open. “You’re-is all that really necessary, young one?”

Sypha bristled. She was not a “young one” Unnamed child, and she knew exactly what she was doing.

_((Mostly. She wondered if it would be better to send her people ahead, though the risk involved with that could be greater than leaving them and the horses idle targets. She wished Adrian were there to reaffirm that her idea was a good one, or Trevor to relieve her of the burden of being the one to call judgement.))_

“Elder Gianne,” she told xem, voice tight. “There are two werewolves that are _very_ likely hunting us. I know how to handle this.”

“You are-”

Sypha lit an inferno in one hand and a swirl of shifting ice in the other. “Please go inside, Elder.”

Xe listened, finally, and Sypha was alone at the edge of the caravan, Artur having followed after Bea.

She couldn’t see or hear anything. The _weres_ could be anywhere along the halted line of wagons, by now. Her people were peaceful, but capable of basic self defense. Hopefully grouping them together would allow for that skill to be utilized to its fullest and not exploited by the _weres_.

Sypha decided to take to the tops of wagons. She’d need her magic to get between them, but it would be easier for surveillance and movement than the ground. A well placed step or two of ice would serve her purpose well.

From her new vantage point, she still could not see the _weres_. The surrounding wildlife threw off strange shadows, and she was too busy trying to reach the center of the line of wagons to watch closely for movements within those shadows. Her people spoke too loudly for her ears to be of much use, so each ounce of focus not in use to stay on the wagon roofs was used to scan for the glowing red of the _weres'_ eyes.

She was nearly to the middle when she heard several cries go up at once four and five wagons ahead. Looking in that direction she could see one of the beasts, teeth bared, crouching down in preparation to pounce.

There were two children and an adult that the _were_ was aiming for, in the process of entering a wagon as Bea must have told them. The uncle, Marcus, had his arms thrown out to push the children back, the kids stumbling away but not _in_ to safety, the nearest Speakers rushing to intervene—but they would all be too late.

One foot on a step of ice, the other still pushing her forward, she flung out her hand and a sheet of ice erupted from the ground just in time for the _were_ to crash into it muzzle-first. Sypha had to catch herself as her weight shifted to her other, unsupported, leg, boosting herself to the next wagon roof.

She was continuing to run towards the quickly recovering _were_ when the second spurred several screams from behind her.

The spacing of the attacks indicated a higher intelligence than a pair of newly turned, uncontrolled _weres_ would possess, just as she’d suspected. They were there to _hunt_ , though for new packmates, meat, or sport she didn’t know.

She pushed the sheet of ice as hard as she could at the first _were_ , flinging them into the trees. She hoped the children got to safety and the other Speakers regrouped while she took care of the second _were_ and the first was dazed.

She backpedalled by pushing her hands in front of herself and propelling backwards with the use of her fire. Her child-body protested the previously well-practiced maneuver of twisting in midair, and the falter cost her dearly.

When she’d landed roughly on the ground, the second _were_ had already taken one of the two horses hitched to a wagon. The poor mare was thrashing, but the _were_ had their jaw locked around her throat. The second horse was panicking, but there was little anyone could do. A few people were trying to beat off the _were_ with walking sticks, but they were too wary to get too close.

“Get back!” Sypha shouted, aiming daggers of ice at the beast. There was a person in there somewhere, yes, but a person who was willing to kill a defenseless animal, a person willing to work with another that was about to attack _children_ , a person who had acted with _intent_.

Perhaps the way of her people was of peace, but Sypha was her own person. She had seen things _((so many, terrible things))_ that made her deadly aware that peace was not always an option. It wasn’t always _worth_ it.

So she shot her daggers of ice at the _were_ , and when they released the dying mare from their maw with a snarl of rage she leveled her fire at them with all intents to kill. And kill she did.

The whines and pained howls of the dying werewolf didn’t draw any emotion but vindication from her.

The first _were_ howled in rage, people screaming as the beast raced for what very might be their dead mate. None of her people sounded hurt when they screamed, so the beast was only heading towards her ready to enact vengeance. She boosted herself over the second tethered mare with her fire to avoid putting her between the incoming _were_ and Sypha.

The beast was barreling towards her, only a wagons-breadth away, and she gave into her instinct, pushing up a jagged spike of rock from where it had been resting beneath the road, driving straight through the _were’s_ skull.

There was silence, aside from the gush of blood from the dying mare and the first werewolf, and the soft gasping from her people. 

“You-you killed them,” an aunt said, finally, hand held to her mouth.

Sypha looked to her, blinking. “Yeah, I did.”

“Werewolves are _people_ ,” another person said.

“Even if they weren’t, you can’t just kill things!” someone else said.

“Is everyone well?”

“How did you do all of that?”

Voices rose, discordant with one another. Sypha was unsettled by the clamor, Speakers were usually polite when it came to talking over one another, it was part of their _culture_.

“Sypha!”

She turned to see her cousin, rushing towards her. He bumped into her as he came to a stop, grabbing her by the shoulders like he had earlier that night. This time, though, he was holding her more tightly and checking her over for injury as much as he could with her baggy gray robes in the way.

“Are you okay?” he asked her, locking eyes with her.

She nodded, silently. Of course she was okay, what sort of question was that? Arn might not have known the details that she had told their grandfather, but he still knew that things like this had been normal for her.

Of course, normally the lives of her family weren’t at risk—that was, the lives of her caravan-family. Whenever Trevor and Adrian were in the line of fire she could trust they could mostly take care of themselves. And normally she wasn’t left trembling, like she’d only realized she was doing when she tried hugging Arn back when he’d embraced her. When had he embraced her?

“Sypha, Arn,” It was their grandfather, taking them each gently by the shoulder and pulling them apart far enough for him to see their faces.

“She-she did all this,” Arn told him, looking at the corpses for less than a moment before he had to turn away with a shudder of disgust.

“I-”

“Speakers do not take lives, young one!” an elder shouted, directed at Sypha.

She stiffened, spine turning to steel and blood boiling. Or rather, the strong ice she made so easily from her own intent, blood turning to the fire she commanded with a thought.

“Those werewolves _knew_ what they were doing, elder,” she retorted, staring Hugue down. “Their attack was too planned out for it to be the madness the moon brings to new _weres_ , and they were going after children! They killed one of our mares before her time! They were a threat and a danger and I put them down unlike what everyone else was willing to do! How many might have died, had I not stepped in?”

Her words had silenced the cacophony of the grouped-together Speakers. Hugue was going from red to purple in his anger, but her grandfather raised a placating hand before any more could be said.

“My granddaughter has experience with such things as we do not,” he said, voice calm and even unlike most of what had been said.

“Ah, yes, the future they speak,” another elder, this named Gisle, said derisively.

“The future from which _she_ came,” her grandfather corrected. “Though I might not agree to the methods, you cannot blame her for reacting the way she did, not after giving her explanation. More shall be discussed on the morrow, of course. We must continue travelling, if that is what is best?”

She realized he was asking her with a small start. It was nice to be looked to like the experienced decision-maker she could be. “The ruins provide shelter that we would not have out here, and there is little in the way of camp-making spots with the trees and undergrowth so dense. If two lookouts are posted at the front and rear, and some sort of signal is made up, we should finish the journey as quickly as we can.”

“Sound judgement, with sound reason. Will anyone dispute?” her grandfather asked. When nothing but sullen silence was met, he nodded. “Then that is what we shall do.”

Several adults got to work giving the last prayers over the deceased mare, giving her thanks for her life spent with them. There wouldn’t be time to bury her now, but a small group would likely be back to give her a proper burial tomorrow. The _weres_ were dragged off the road and into the brush. A pair of the spare horses replaced the frightened mare that had lost her partner.

Arn steered her off towards their wagon, currently without a driver as their grandfather participated in the organizing of their people. As soon as she realized he was intent on putting her in the wagon, she balked, pulling against the grip he had on her wrist.

“Arn, no, I have to-I’m the only one who can fight if something else comes-”

“You’re shaking like a leaf, Sypha,” he told her flatly, lifting her by the waist to set her on the cluttered walk space of their wagon. Arn’s bunk, at the very top, was the only one that had very little on it in terms of storage, only a few small boxes. He stepped in after her and started to clear it off.

“But-” she tried to protest as she climbed up to his bunk.

“If it comes to another fight, someone will wake you,” he promised, pushing on her behind to give her a final boost into the bunk. There were no safety guards to put in place, having gotten rid of them several years ago in this time when Sypha was old enough not to have to worry of her rolling off in the night.

She was feeling rather shaken, and tired. Maybe the long day and the use of her unpracticed (in this time) magic had been more draining than she had thought.

“Sleep, cousin,” Arn told her, smoothing the blankets over her in a show of fussing he was rare to give. He pressed a kiss to her forehead, right at his height that seemed so absurd when she was still a foot shorter than him.

She probably should have stayed outside and helped, or at least continued to provide patrol and guard, but she gave into what her cousin asked of her and fell into an immediate, deep sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God, I hate writing fight scenes. I also had terrible cramps all day, lots of yard work to help with, and some homework to finish up so....sorry for the lateness of the chapter. It's technically no longer Sunday for me.
> 
> Also, FINALLY! I gave something of some importance to Sypha. This is the longest chapters I've written for this fic, too, so that's lots of content for her. I also threw in some cute OT3 reminiscing. I was trying to do a few mannerisms and things to mark her character as different (as I've been also trying to do for each of the boys) so I'd love if you tell me any that you noticed :) :)
> 
> Also--some Speaker things. They're really chill with gender stuff, using neutral terms for any who wish, and for those that aren't quite sure. Unnamed are kiddos that have yet to pick their name and gender, and that typically happens around 10-13, but not uncommon to take longer. Names are super important to them.
> 
> Speakers gain the title of aunt/uncle once they have children, or reach an age where they could have children. Basically, if a sixteen year old has a baby she now has the title of aunt to everyone (except for her own kid, who'd call her mom), but a child-less woman wouldn't become an aunt until 25/30 or so. Elders are the title for those that are older, or grandparents, similar to how the aunt/uncle thing works.
> 
> [You can find my tumblr here!](https://omegros.tumblr.com) I post updates and some funny stuff about this verse!
> 
> Edits made on 8/9/2020


	9. Adrian Picks a Bedroom and Eats Some Food

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cw brief allusion to the Taka/Sumi situation

Adrian spent his day trying to find a more permanent place to sleep.

Tucking himself away in alcoves and on seldom-used couches wasn’t sustainable in the long run. Besides, he wanted to have a space to call his own. After two years of having the entire castle and then some to himself--the only intruders on that solitude being people he was more than okay with wandering anywhere--he missed that privacy to an extent.

He was still startled when places that were under major disrepair in his time were perfectly fine. He avoided the staircase that led from the major guest wing to the first floor because he was used to the hole that he so often fell into that brought him into this whole mess in the first place. He was startled when he walked through the blown-open hallway only to find it closed off, expected to have to jump over a shattered walkway on the main path to the largest conservatory, and wondered where the tripping-hazard rubble had gone in the main entrance.

He nearly jumped at every sigh of others living there, too. It was odd to hear footsteps, or see recently distrubed rooms, and most certainly to run into someone. He was so used to it only being him, Sypha, and Trevor with the occasional visit from Isaac and Hector. The faceless ghoul servants held in thrall unsettled him as they quietly worked, and he still avoided the vampires and other creatures of the night that came to grace his father’s court. Especially the _weres_ that showed up. _Why_ a tribe of werecats would come to stay during the full moon, Adrian would never understand.

Despite the emotional revelations that just came to light the evening before, Adrian had seen none of his parents since they had gone off to bed. They had made sure he was in his old bedroom and ready to sleep before they did, though Adrian slipped out as soon as his mother was asleep. His father undoubtedly knew, but Adrian couldn’t sleep. Not in that room.

So he figured he should find somewhere he could.

His immediate instinct was to head towards the guest bedroom Trevor, Sypha and him had shared in the future.

It had been chosen for several reasons—location to several kitchens, entrances, bathing rooms, libraries, and the main dungeons among some of them. It was also relatively small and secure for the typical grandiose structures of the castle, clean aside from built-up dust, and _((most importantly in Adrian’s mind, though his used-to-roughing-it humans had little care for the matter))_ a functioning fireplace.

But Adrian didn’t think he could handle being within those familiar walls without his two humans. It was hard enough being separated from them without seeing the echo of what once-was. What he selfishly wished still-was, on occasion, when the guilt of his father’s blood on his hands and the ache accompanied by his mother’s memory and the longing to be near Trevor and Sypha got to be too painful.

_((He knew that was wrong. Trevor’s family would be dead, if the three hadn’t come back. This way Adrian could help prevent his mother’s death, and his father’s madness, and the slaughter of thousands. It didn’t stop the childish wants.))_

So no, he couldn’t move into that room. And without two humans that felt distances more acutely than a dhampir ever would, he didn’t have to worry about where in the castle he chose to bed down.

_((As long as he avoided the wing his childhood bedroom was in, Trevor, Sypha, and his old bedroom, and the room he had-the room he was in before Trevor and Sypha came home, he had free range.))_

One of the towers might be nice. He could claim one and have a few rooms practically to himself to make into a bedroom and an art studio. In the right tower, he could even have his own library pretty much to himself.

There was a tower, closer to the eastern part of the castle...at least at this positioning when the castle faced to the south, that had all that and an observatory at the top. There was a kitchen not far from the base of the tower, too. It had the added benefit of being far away from the areas of the castle that would see the most guests. He hadn’t enjoyed them much the first time around and doubted that, after all the shit he’d seen a good chunk of his father’s compatriots doing, it’d be much different now.

He spent the rest of the night and almost all of the next day clearing out and moving into the rooms he chose, leaving the majority of his belongings in his childhood bedroom. Other than some of the clothes, he didn’t want the memories that were attached. He could start new sketchbooks, and he might’ve been ten again, but that didn’t mean he wanted any of his old toys and decorations.

He was in the process of carrying the one particular armchair that he loved to pieces from its old home in a seldom-used study to his own library, one of the last things he was set on doing that day, when his mother interrupted him.

“Where are you taking that chair?”

He paused in the middle of the hallway, turning to look at her.

He supposed he shouldn’t be shocked at seeing her, not after everything that had been discussed in the wee hours of morning, but today _was_ the full moon. It was practically nightfall by now, too. His father had hated the full moon and ever since Adrian was old enough to do so he had been all but left alone on the day before. His mother and father spent the day holed up in their room, but by the next morning his mother would be up and working again. His father usually took at least another day to keep up with the drowsiness that the sun and full moon caused.

“I’ve chosen a new bedroom, up in the astronomy tower,” he explained, blowing his hair away from his face. He probably should have braided it back—it would have been much less hassle—but it wouldn’t have been the same as when Trevor did it.

“And why the chair?” his mother asked, bemused. Adrian was relieved that she was asking after that rather than his reasons for moving.

“I like it.”

“Once you’re done moving it, why don’t you come down to the kitchen?”

“I’m not hungry,” he automatically deflected. The short conversation had been stilted, and he didn’t look forward to continuing it over a meal.

She crossed her arms and gave him a hard look. “Your father told me you haven’t eaten all day.”

He folded. “I suppose I could eat something, if you insist.”

She smiled with a familiar, painful warmth. He fought the urge to run from it.

He was feeling dizzy—even dizzier than he had for the past few hours—as he dragged the chair up the steps. Maybe he was a bit hungrier than he thought. It _had_ been a few days since his last proper meal.

The smell in the small kitchen, the one nearest to his parent’s bedroom, was enough to make his stomach rumble. His mother was no chef, but she could cook well enough to get by. Garlic fried fish and freshly baked bread, from the scent of it. Something else, too, something that made his mouth water. Iron.

His mother was fixing a pair of plates, a bloodied rag wrapped around her hand.

Adrian stood in the doorway, staring at her injured hand. How long had it been since he’d had any blood? Before he fell through the Infinity Corridor, at least in his mind’s memory. Who knew how long it had been for this body.

“Oh! There you are. Sit down and eat,” his mother urged, setting the two plates at the small table.

He obeyed, still unable to look away from her hand.

“You cut yourself?” he asked.

“While I was mincing the garlic the knife slipped,” she explained. “Just skin, luckily.”

He had to swallow the saliva pooling in his mouth. The food on the table held little interest to him. He was hungry, but he was much, _much_ more thirsty.

Lisa must have traced his gaze, because she suddenly asked. “When was the last time you had any blood?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted.

She grumbled under her breath as she stood to go to the icebox, muttering about “ridiculous dramatic vampires” as she grabbed a healthy serving of what was undoubtedly her own blood, stored away for cases like this. She set the container on the hearth to warm.

She sat back down, across from him, and pointed an accusing finger. “First you go and skip sleeping last night, then you don’t eat, and now I’m finding out you haven’t been drinking blood in God knows how long?”

Adrian shrunk back, finally managing to focus on his food enough to poke at it with his fork.

His mother sighed. “Adrian, baby, I’m worried about you. I know you’re...different, and this whole situation must be difficult, but this isn’t healthy.”

“I know,” he said, trying not to sound petulant. “It won’t be as bad, now. Between avoiding you and father, and everything else…”

She made a humming noise, clearly still concerned but willing to let the issue go. She began eating and Adrian did the same. It was good, a meal that both his mother and Adrian himself had made countless times. They didn’t speak as they ate. Maybe both were still uncertain where they stood with one another, after what Adrian had revealed.

From years of doing so, his mother knew just when to retrieve the container of blood when it was perfectly warm, hot like it was coming fresh from the vein.

Without preamble, Adrian raised the container to his mouth.

He nearly spit it back out.

It was just right, temperature-wise. It had the slightly stale taste of reheated blood, but he’d expected that. He had braced himself for the rush that a drink of blood caused after a long while without.

It was the familiar taste of his mother’s blood, so long since he’d tasted it, that caused the reaction. There had been a time, not so long ago, that he was certain he would never have it again. To him it tasted like home.

It wasn’t the only blood that tasted like home anymore, though. Trevor and Sypha both held that honor. There was no telling how long it would be before he got to see them again, but he _would_ see them. He was certain he would.

He swallowed the mouthful of his mother’s blood, letting the feeling of warmth and love and home wash over him.

“What is it?” she asked after his momentary hesitation.

“Nothing,” he answered, because it was just that.

He took another sip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a fat minute, hasn't it? All I've got to say in my defense is school. Just...school. But I finished the semester with decent enough grades so I'm happy! I should be updating more frequently now, because of it. 
> 
> [You can find my tumblr here!](https://omegros.tumblr.com)
> 
> Edits made 8/9/2020


	10. Cousin Alina is a Bitch

“Isn’t he a little _old_ to be in here?”

Trevor sunk lower in his seat, setting his darning on his lap to attempt to draw less attention to it. Cousin Alina was quick to voice her disapproval. Once she began it was almost impossible to get her to stop complaining about Trevor’s _((and his family’s, but he was the target for most of her scorn))_ many faults. His willingness to sit with the women and help with the sewing _((skills he already had))_ , knitting _((something his sister Louise had been teaching him in the past five months whenever she was around))_ , and embroidering _((his mother was helping him hone his skill))_ was always quick to draw her ire, but as of late his presence was enough.

“He’s only twelve,” his mother was quick to defend.

“It is hardly proper, Helaine,” Cousin Alina said with a haughty sniff. “Women who are in a family way, especially this far along, should be away from the vulgarities of men.”

Just then Colette pricked her finger and let loose a soft flurry of curses. Cousin Alina ignored her.

“I am not, of course, attempting to dictate your family-”

“Good,” their mother interrupted with a smile that Trevor knew from experience was _sharp_. “I say Trevor should stay.”

“Of course,” Cousin Alina said through gritted teeth. “Whatever you think is best.”

Colette and Catherine laughed—obviously at her expense, though the way that they were facing made it impossible for her to directly call them out for it. Trevor managed a small snort when Catherine met his eye.

He didn’t like Cousin Alina, or her husband Dinu.

In Trevor’s own timeline, after his family died, he had made his way to his father’s second cousin’s house. Trevor had other surviving family—an aunt of his mother’s who never took up hunting, and his father’s brother who owned a modest estate to the south—but Trevor had figured the church would look there first when they realized he wasn’t dead like everyone else.

He didn’t know Cousin Alina well, but she was brought up often enough that he knew _of_ her. She had sounded rather rude and conceited, but Trevor had hoped she would help, at least for a short while.

He had been wrong.

Cousin Alina kept a sour expression from greeting him through his entire _((brief))_ stay. The only reason he wasn’t turned away immediately was because the servant had taken pity on his plight. Dirty, skinny, and claiming that the lady of the house was his relative. He had sat in the formal dining room eating the meal that had been given to him, desperately clinging to his manners as to make Cousin Alina like him, explaining what had happened and why he was there.

She had to have known about the Belmont excommunication and subsequent fire—nearly everyone did—but she let him talk between bites. The moment he was finished eating she held up her hand to halt his words. Trevor waited, breath caught in his throat.

“You are my blood, boy. Because of that I won’t call for the church.”

Trevor was able to breathe, relief coursing through him—

“But if you come back to this place, if you so much as lean against our gate, my mercy will not be extended.”

Trevor had felt like crying. He’d left her house, food turning to lead in his stomach, and headed to one of the alleys in the nearby town for the night. In the morning he set off for one of his family’s safe houses that he was pretty confident he knew the location of. He hadn’t reached out to anyone else since—didn’t ever meet any of his living relatives in his own time after his cousin turned him away.

When his parents decided that Cousin Alina’s house would be a safe place for Colette to stay until the baby was born, after winter ended on their remote mountain safe house, he almost protested. He wouldn’t have a good explanation, but Cousin Alina’s threats had stuck with him. The only reason he didn’t say anything was because he was all but positive the nine of them would be able to run if Cousin Alina _did_ turn them in.

Luckily, his father and mother pulled Cousin Alina and her husband Dimu into a private sitting room and convinced them to let at least some of them stay. Trevor wasn’t sure what was said, but since Cousin Alina was inordinately respectful of their mother, even when it was clear that she wanted to disagree.

Only Trevor, Catherine, and their mother stayed in Cousin Alina’s house full time with Colette. Their father and four other sisters came in turns of two or three every few weeks, checking up with them and gathering resources for their continued survival outside the church.

“You gonna finish that sock?” his mother prompted, nudging his leg with the toe of her shoe.

“It’s a little difficult when Colette wore through the entire heel,” he said, grinning as he picked his darning up.

“Hey, jerk!” Colette said, acting more offended than she was. “Not my fault they’re all swollen!”

“It’s kind of your fault,” their mother teased.

Cousin Alina made a gasping sort of offended noise, quickly standing and excusing herself from the room with a face like a lemon.

“Finally,” Colette sighed, setting her feet up on the ottoman, kicking off her shoes. Her feet _did_ look painfully puffy. She relaxed back, tossing her embroidery to her lap.

Catherine leaned over the space between the couch and the chair Trevor was in, tugging at his sleeve until he relented and moved to sit between her and Colette. Colette lazily patted his chest with the back of her hand and Catherine rested her head on his shoulder.

Their mother rolled her eyes, but unlike Cousin Alina she didn’t berate them for being so close at their age. It was much more fond, indulgent. She’d argued enough for their sakes. “They were together in the womb,” she’d told Cousin Alina. “They can sit next to each other now.”

“Your father should be coming in three days,” she told them, focusing on her stitching. She was letting in the seams on one of Eleanore’s old dresses that Catherine would be needing soon. It was too small for Annette, now, and Catherine was about to grow out of one of the two dresses she’d managed to take with them before their manor was burnt down. 

“Will Gabrielle be with him again?” Colette asked. The last time they’d visited together, two weeks ago.

“No, he should be with Annette or Louise.”

Catherine grumbled about wanting to work with Gabrielle on her footwork. Annette was the second best for footwork, but she was not a great teacher if she ended up accompanying their father.

“Hopefully he brings some news of home,” Colette said, a bit of cheer to her tone.

Trevor knew that she just wanted to get to the Belmont hold, or to check on the villages that bordered their estate, or to feel out when she might be able to take her twin babies to their ancestral home. It didn’t stop Trevor’s emotions that came with that area. He’d watched his family and home burn and crumble there. Those villagers came in a mob or didn’t stop the mob. He hadn’t been allowed to grow up there himself.

_((Then there were the more complex memories, of the Belmont hold with Adrian and Sypha as they hunted down Dracula; of bodies staked up in the backyard, in front of the castle his family had feared for over five hundred years; of villagers that had managed to survive the genocide and turned to a Speaker magician, a dhampir, and the last Belmont for help._

_Mostly, though, as of late, Trevor thought about sparring on the grounds with Adrian and Sypha, or walking with them through the sun-dappled woods, of their feeble attempts at a garden.))_

“I hope he brings me a new sword,” Catherine sighs. Hers had been shattered when she’d been in a scuffle with one of the bandits that accosted her group when they’d been travelling to Cousin Alina’s house.

“I’m sure one will turn up sooner than later,” their mother assured.

“Oooh!” Colette exclaimed, grabbing Trevor’s wrist—ignoring his brief struggle as he tried to finish his stitch—placing his hand on the curve of her belly. One the babies had an elbow or knee pressed up against the skin. Even as he held his hand in place the baby shifted away and back again.

“They’re both stretching,” she said, beaming. She dropped his wrist, going to hold onto the coral pendant Trevor had gifted her a month ago when he’d snuck into the town with a couple of the servants.

“Let me feel!” Catherine cried, laying across Trevor’s lap to reach. Like always, she made noises of wonder at the sensation.

“You know, it’s you twins' fault that I’m having twins,” Colette said. Her eyes were shut and her head resting back on the couch.

“Twins are more fun, aren’t they, little brother,” Catherine grinned.

Usually, maybe, Trevor would shove her on the floor or complain that eighteen minutes hardly counted for anything even if he knew it would do no good, but he didn’t this time. His niece or nephew or both were pushing up against his palm, his mother was sewing a few feet away, and he was right between two of his sisters.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Twins are better.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cousin Alina has NOTHING to do with the Barbie character Elina--Elina is wonderful and has in no way inspired this character. This is just the randomized (hopefully Romanian) name that popped up when I searched for it.
> 
> As for some of the pregnancy things! In my brief research about medieval pregnancy vulgarity/ugliness was to be avoided, though usually the whole male-avoidance thing came when a woman was closer to labor because a man shouldn't be anywhere near childbirth. The coral pendant that Trevor gave Colette was another superstition, wearing a coral necklace and holding a magnet in their hand was considered lucky ((don't ask me why)), though again I believe that this is supposed to be towards the end of the pregnancy. The whole twin-superstition thing was not something that I found anything on, but I thought it would be a cute addition. For context, Colette is about six/seven months pregnant at this point.
> 
> Edits made 8/9/2020


	11. Sypha Fucks Up A Tree

“Well met, Sypha of the Belnades caravan,” Elder Hugue said, a tight smile aimed in Sypha’s direction. “We Speakers welcome you as a full fledged Speaker into our ranks.”

Sypha tried not to roll her eyes. This was the second Naming ceremony she had for herself, and it was no less tedious or vaguely condescending this time around. Of course, Elder Hugue was purposefully being an asshole, and most of her boredom had been sated by excitement the first time she had been recognized by her people as no longer a child, but a proper member who was there by choice rather than circumstances of birth.

“Well met, Elder,” she told him.

Her grandfather held out a blue robe, likely one of Arn’s that no longer quite fit, or a donation from another family.

Sypha took off her gray child’s robe, leaving her in only her shift, folding it carefully to exchange with her grandfather. She put on the blue robe.

Despite being the style she was more used to, and a color she had spent the majority of the later half of her life in, it didn’t feel...right. Maybe she had gotten much more used to the dresses she had scavenged from Lisa Tepes’s closet, or the fitted trousers that the Belmont women left in the Hold and every safe house she had been to.

But maybe it was just this body. When she wasn’t thinking about it, the child’s body she now owned didn’t bother her. But when she did it made her skin crawl.

“You are no longer a child, dear Sypha. Welcome to our caravan.”

As soon as she was able, Sypha slipped away from the bustling caravan, even more merely in their evening meal with the excuse of her Naming to celebrate.

The woods were shadowy, sprouts of green beginning to overtake the dull browns and grays of the place after the snows of winter. Sypha’s new robes stood out like a beacon in the softening sunlight, though that did not strike the fear in her like it might’ve in her own time.

Here there was hardly a thing that she wouldn’t be able to brave alone—wild boar or bear or wolves, spirit or hell beast or creeping drakon, man or woman or fucking mage. Nobody was desperately scavenging to make ends meet in the harsh years since Dracula’s war. Creatures of the Night had not taken over where the humans faltered. Rare few had the experience to fight as she did, here, much less expect her to possess similar skills and magic alongside it.

Sypha began to run as soon as she got far enough from camp to stop sneaking. It was a nice, easy pace, one she could maintain for about a mile without becoming too winded.

She took a moment to survey the small clearing—it was filled with small boulders, shrubs, and a small rain-water pond with enough of a gap between the trees to see the gray-tinted sky. Perfect for what she intended.

After the pair of werewolves attacked the caravan several months ago, Sypha had been practicing. The first thing she did was make sure she could do all the same magic she used to—fire, ice, lightning, and the basics of earth she’d picked up while helping fix up the castle. The knowledge of how to connect herself to the magical energies remained to their full extent, even if using them exhausted her more than it should.

Physically, though, her body couldn’t keep up. Exhaustion notwithstanding. 

It was like she couldn’t _move_ the way she wanted. She tried running on her floating ice steps and wasn’t able to make the gap, crashing to the ground. She couldn’t always make the hand movements that used to come natural, which made casting easier when used. She got out of breath and struggled with running through her basic combat forms.

Ever since that frustrating realization _((in the day following the werewolves, her people watching from the circle of wagons with a mix of fear-horror-disapproval-awe-gratefulness))_ Sypha had been pushing herself to get to a point where she didn’t feel like she was fighting her own body as she fought.

She took a deep breath and struck out with her fist

A field-stone sized rock flew across the clearing and straight into the trunk of a rather large tree. It shook, splinters flying. 

Following her own momentum, Sypha took a step forward and lifted the water from the little pond. She twisted her fingers to make the water curl and arc, not for the beauty but for the practice in control. With a turn of her wrist she transformed the water into shards of ice and with a flick they joined the rock embedded in the tree.

Another step. Several blasts of fire, small and narrowed and all the more intense for their compounding. The ice melted, and the rock fell with a thud as the wood around it was burned away. Still, the tree stood.

Another step and a scream of effort as Sypha called down lightning from the latent energy in the sky. Part of the tree fell over, snapping branches and boughs as it went. The other half wobbled, blackened and burnt and certain to fall at the next big storm, but remained upright.

Sypha glared at it.

It infuriated her.

The tree defied her, standing despite all she threw at it, despite all logic, despite the parts bending to her will, despite trembling in the face of her magic and knowledge and years—it towered over her like those _fucking_ elders, patronizing and so rooted in the past they refused to see the future.

Sypha sent ice-saws and uncontrolled fire blasts and high speed pebbles at the tree until it finally cracked and fell. She had to jump to get out of the way.

Panting from the effort, Sypha surveyed the damage. Ice lay in half-melted puddles in all the places little fires hadn’t sprouted up in the brush, and there were tiny gouges in the earth where she’d pulled up the pebbles.

She stood over the remains of the tree and...felt a bit better. The rage was out of her system, for now, at least. And clear headed like this she could admit that the elders were not rooted in the past in their own minds, but rather a present that had not yet known the impossible horrors Sypha’s world had. Horrors this world _wouldn’t_ see.

Sypha extinguished the small flames and headed back to her caravan beneath the blanket of midnight blue that had settled over the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It has been a...good while. I started writing this chapter on June 26, and here I am finishing it up on July 31. 
> 
> I did figure out what to do with Sypha in the future, though! Which is better than having her training in the woods like some kind of jackass ((though I am happy with the "training in the woods PLUS some venting")). It involves more forests, but it also involves Sypha being That Bitch and people being rightfully terrified of her.
> 
> Next chapter will be...I don't even know when. I'm kinda more focused on my seventeen hundred Star Wars aus I can't seem to stop writing and coming up with ideas for. But the next chapter will be Adrian! Maybe talking about some characters from the show that have yet to make an appearance...and at the end of his chapter will be voting or whatever for baby names! I'll make a list of a couple of boy names and a couple of girl names and let y'all see them early/help me decide.
> 
> Edits made 8/9/2020


	12. Adrian Remembers Something That's Probably Important

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cw for (vaguely) implied past child abuse and brief reference to Sumi and Taka.

Adrian squinted down at his sketchbook, frowning in his concentration. The shading didn’t  _ look _ right. It would be so much better if he had his models in front of him, like he normally used to, but obviously Trevor and Sypha were nowhere nearby.

“Adrian, could you come here?” his mother called from the bottom of the staircase. With the distance from the base of the tower and the door firmly shut and locked Adrian wouldn’t have been able to hear her, at least not clearly, had he been more human. As such, it was either shout or hurry up to go to her before she decided to come up to find him. She would walk into his art studio — or rather, with it locked, get a glimpse in as he slipped out the door while she stood there—and find the hundreds of sketches of Trevor and Sypha strewn about.

Most were in decently organized stacks, but a few less-than-perfect ones had fallen to the floor and he hadn’t bothered picking them up. Some of the best work —including the starts of an oil painting—were hanging up on the walls, strung up to the ceiling, or propped on easels.

He had started drawing them not long after he’d told his parents about the Infinity Corridor situation and hadn’t stopped since. He drew them doing everything he could remember—from Trevor coming in from the rain with hair plastered to his head and scowling to Sypha beaming over some small accomplishment in renovations with dust on her cheek.

He drew other things, too, like the overgrown Belmont gardens, the burnt remains of the two stakes in front of the castle, the persistent little bear cub that Hector had named Trevor. Mostly, though, he drew his two humans.

_ ((If he was being honest with himself, he was a bit worried he’d forget otherwise. He didn’t know if he could handle it if he wasn’t able to recall the way Sypha’s hair looked all stuck up in the morning, or the crinkle of Trevor’s eyes when he would look at Sypha and Adrian, or the way the two fit curled up together with one of Trevor’s sides open and inviting for Adrian to join them. Adrian would miss seeing their faces everyday, too, if he didn’t do this.)) _

He added a few scratched-in lines for Trevor’s stubble. He still wasn’t satisfied with it, but it’d have to do. It'd likely be one of the ones that ended up on the floor, or buried in the middle of a stack.

“Yes, mother?” he asked when he was nearly down the stairs.

Lisa smiled at him when he came into her line of sight. She was wearing a dark green dress, one that Sypha had liked quite a bit. He remembered when Sypha first pulled it from storage and twirled around in it until she stumbled into Hector and Isaac had needed to steady them before they both fell to the ground.

“Your father just finished dinner, come eat.”

They were eating in the large kitchens nearest his parents’ bedroom and other personal rooms aside from their giant laboratory. The kitchen had been part of the locked-down wing, in his time, mostly because how often he and his parents would take their meals at the table there rather than in any of the informal or formal dining rooms.

The food looked foreign—from somewhere in Asia, that much Adrian could tell at a glance. He was inclined to say Thai with the spices he could smell, but he was no expert despite the frequency at which his father made “exotic” dishes.  _ ((Nothing could really be considered exotic when you had a castle that could move anywhere in the world, even if you didn’t use it much anymore.)) _

“I was planning on going on a trip, soon,” Adrian’s father said after a scattering of small talk and the first half of their dinner being eaten.

“Oh,” said his mother. “Where to?”

Now that Adrian thought about it, it was incredibly strange that his father hadn’t traveled within the past six months since Adrian had arrived. At least since Adrian’s mother showed up at the castle's door, his father frequently traveled—both to other vampiric courts and among the humans. It wasn’t until Adrian was grown and doing his own travels and studying that his father spent months away, though. Usually it was only a few weeks at the most, when he’d been this age, but rather often. He must have been staying because of Adrian.

“The Mediterranean, I think. Egypt would be nice, or maybe Greece.”

Oh. Adrian just realized something he probably should have earlier. Trevor and Sypha were  _ ((all but definitely))  _ here in this time, but that was only because they were next to him when the Infinity Corridor sent them here. Everyone else was from this time, including other people they knew.

“You should go to Greece,” Adrian said. “And then Anatolia.”

Both of his parents looked at him with obvious confusion.

“Oh? Is there a reason?” his father asked.

He floundered for a moment. He couldn’t exactly explain why he knew two forge masters without inviting all sorts of uncomfortable questions.

“Ah-friends of mine, from my time, are living there. If I knew they were alright I would leave them be, but…”

“You suspect they aren't,” his mother filled in.

Adrian nodded. “Hector, in Greece, was on his own aside from his pets for the past few years in this time. I think he’s fifteen or sixteen, now. He...his childhood wasn’t the best, and I can’t imagine the neighbors take kindly to him.”

“And why’s that?” Adrian’s father asked.

Adrian hesitated for a moment, but he had to tell them the truth or none of this would make sense. “Hector’s a forge master. So is the friend in Anatolia, Isaac.”

His father leaned nearly entirely across the table. “ _ Really _ , both of them?”

Forge masters were rare in it of themselves. For Adrian to have even met two in his short time on earth was an oddity—especially with how solitary most forge masters were, either by choice or through unsettled mortals and the demands of monstrous courts—for him to be friends with them both was practically unheard of.

“Yes,” Adrian said. “Hector mostly just uses it to reanimate his pets, and Isaac is...in the process of being taught, now. That’s not…” He trailed off with a disquieted hum and a grimace.

“Why?” his mother asked. “What happened—is happening—during his training?”

“It’s not my place to say, but what little I know…” Adrian shuddered. There was a process involved in turning a man into someone like Isaac when he was assisting in the genocide—eager to end humanity, blindly loyal to the first person who showed him decency, unflinching and un _ caring _ at the inevitable end of his own life. Isaac hadn’t been exactly forthright with information about himself, but the gleans of it in late night conversations were horrifying.

“I will visit them both. I’m assuming they’ll be welcoming enough?” his father said.

“I expect so, but don’t be ‘Lord Dracula’ with them,” Adrian said. “A bit of kindness should do.”

His parents exchanged a glance, his mother’s lower lip caught in her teeth and his father’s head tilted just so. Adrian knew they were agreeing on something, though he didn’t know what.

“I’ll leave tomorrow at dusk,” his father decided.

“Lovely,” said his mother. “Dessert?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, an update an actual week after the last one? Iconic of me.
> 
> Okay some important information first--I have an outline! This work is going to be 30 chapters long, and everything else (including some stuff that WILL come after the finished product) will be put into the extended verse. This will likely include that Swapped Not Replaced fic and an entire collection of cute fluffy "afterwards" stuff.
> 
> The "persistent bear cub that Hector had named Trevor" is something that captainkirksancestor (on ao3, mewmewatlantis on tumblr) came up with when we were chatting once. She's a beautiful cuddly little bear cub and Hector named her Trevor because he knew plenty of Trevor's growing up, all of them girls. Human-Trevor doesn't know enough about Greece naming culture to despute him. Mewmewatlantis looked it up and there was a girl's name (Trefor, I think, is the pronunciation/spelling) that was common in Greece at the time.
> 
> Next chapter will be the baby Belmont twins! Please comment your favorite name combination/reasoning behind it! I might tally up preferences or be swayed by whoever makes the best argument. If you really like one of the girl names with a boy name that it isn't paired with argue for that too lol.
> 
> Marguerite (girl) and Pierre (boy)  
> Charlotte (girl) and Olivier (boy)  
> Eloise (girl) and Claude (boy)
> 
> As always, you can [find my tumblr here](https://omegros.tumblr.com)!


	13. okay okay okay but BABIES

“You can hold them, if you want,” Colette said.

Trevor looked up from the two little babes, swaddled in the blankets he’d helped his mother and sister sew, red faced and weird-looking like every newborn, both absolutely perfect. Colette was smiling at him, eyes soft despite the tiredness that dwelled there as well.

It had been a long two days for all of them--Trevor and most of his sisters and their father waiting to hear news aside from what cries escaped the little room, Colette shut up with Louise, their mother, and a midwife. Everyone had been worried, due to how many women and children didn’t make it through the labor, and Trevor especially so. He knew better than the rest of his family, and worse, he knew it was mostly preventable.

Adrian had somehow gotten roped into being the doctor and midwife to the surrounding lands of the ruined Belmont estate in the years Castlevania had been grounded there. The peasants knew Adrian wasn’t quite human, and had their customs of birth being completely man-free, but eventually  _ ((after a very entertaining incident involving a dress and a miraculously well mother and child)) _ they warmed up to him. Because of that Trevor bore constant witness to the sheer size of the would-be-death toll, had Adrian not been involved. There had still been losses that Adrian had been unable to prevent.

Trevor knew how much riskier twins were, and he knew how much guilt he would feel if something happened to Colette or the twins because he hadn’t done everything in his power to prevent it.

He debated with himself back-and-forth on whether or not seeking out Lisa Tepes--or better yet, Adrian--was a good idea. He’d ultimately decided there were too many risks involved.

Firstly and most obviously was, of course, Dracula. Then there was the matter of  _ where _ Lisa could be found--she returned frequently to her home village of Lupu, but she’d also done a great deal of travelling around Wallachia whenever she wasn’t learning and researching within Castlevania itself. And would Lisa even treat a Belmont? Would Trevor’s family allow Dracula’s wife to treat one of their own? Was it worth the risk of travelling to find out, when the church was out for their blood and Colette was well rounded with child?

_ ((There was a small, dark fear that even if Trevor showed up to Lisa’s door, and saw Adrian standing behind her, all he’d do is scoff and dismiss him as a Belmont hunter and claim his worthless of aid. That he wouldn’t recognize Trevor, even though Trevor recognized him.)) _

That is to say, when the first babe cried--then the second--then the women in joyous celebration--Trevor fell back into his seat with a great sigh of relief.

_ ((He wouldn’t have been able to handle either of the babies loss, and most certainly not Colette’s. Not when he had gained her back less than eight months ago, after more than a decade of her gone. Not when those babes represented everything he had lost and more. A legacy he’d been expected to maintain all on his own, a next generation he was never quite sure would come to be, the hope for the day the Belmonts could proclaim their name and walk among the people again.)) _

He waited his turn--dead last, but at least Catherine was made to wait as well--to file into Colette’s room and meet their niece and nephew. The entire family has stayed up so late, and later still to properly be able to assure themselves of the children and Colette’s health, that the sky was beginning to lighten with dawn when Trevor and Catherine were invited into the bedroom.

Catherine pulled Trevor by the hand, quick at first, but slow as they entered the little room.

Colette was propped up on the bed, exhausted but still so full of life, a peaceful sort rather than the manic energy given by adrenaline. “Come meet the twins, twins,” she said with a grin, and there they were, bundled in her arms.

Trevor was captivated. He kind of felt like crying, though he couldn’t name why.

“You can hold them, if you want,” Colette said.

Catherine followed Trevor like a shadow as he came closer to the bed, suddenly shy despite her earlier exuberance. 

Trevor felt a bit like the first time he had been handed a baby--panicked and unsure--even if that had been long ago in his memory, and he’d held a fair amount of them since. Surprisingly many while night creatures attacked. Funny, if it weren’t so depressing, how defenseless families and Hell’s beasts went hand in hand. 

“We can?” Catherine said, so quiet she almost whispered.

“Sit, if you want,” Colette invited.

They sat.

Their mother took one of the babes from Colette and circled the bed. She gave the baby to Catherine, quickly issuing instructions on how best to hold her and make sure she held up the head. Catherine looked revenant--eyes wide, jaw dropped so that her lips were parted in a soft  _ oh _ \--cradling the baby as if she were made of spun sugar and glass.

Their mother was handing the other baby to Trevor, then, the same instructions told to him.

Trevor knew the mechanics, he wasn’t worried about hurting him, but still anxiety rose from his chest and into his throat as the babe was transferred to him.

He must’ve looked exactly the same as Catherine, if his mother and Colette’s laughter were anything to go off, but he hardly noticed the teasing. The babe in his arms was making soft grunting noises as he squirmed and settled. He was warm and solid--still so light and fragile, but present--and Trevor didn’t have words to describe the warmth that bloomed in his chest. 

He was holding his nephew.  _ His nephew _ . A new Belmont, that had never known this world. An innocent--so new and fresh and precious.

“Oh, Trevor,” his mother laughed, and he realized he was crying.

He sniffed, rubbed his eyes against his shoulder to get away the wetness, and held the baby as close as he dared. Catherine met his eye, briefly, before he looked back down at their nephew, and she had a funny expression of joy-teasing-understanding, their niece in her arms.

“The girl’s Marguerite,” Colette told them, eyes half-lidded and fluttering. Their mother made a happy humming noise. “And the boy’s Olivier. You two might as well be the first I tell.”

“Marguerite Belmont,” Catherine said, testing. “Olivier Belmont. I like them.”

“Alright, I think it’s time that you all go to bed,” their mother said.

“Oh, let them stay,” Colette said with a jaw-cracking yawn, settling deeply into the pillows. “‘S long as they’re quiet.”

“They’ve been up late enough already-” their mother argued.

“I’m not tired,” Trevor interrupted. He wanted to spend every possible moment with the twins. He wanted a chance to hold his niece. He wanted to never leave their sides, however impossible he knew that to be.

“Let them stay,” Colette said again, more asleep than not.

Catherine looked to their mother with pleading eyes.

“Oh, alright, but then it’s straight to bed with you both. I don’t want to see you until the afternoon, at least, you hear?”

They chorused their agreement. Their mother muttered about disrespectful children as she settled into a chair in the corner of the room. There was no bit behind it.

Olivier shifted in his sleep, again, and Trevor knew that God Himself wouldn’t come between him and those two children. Not the church, not Dracula, not the Infinity Corridor that allowed him to be here. Marguerite and Olivier Belmont were alive despite the impossibility. They would stay alive until they grew old. They were going to grow up with everything he had and more--all the love, the education, the freedom, and nothing would be allowed to take that from them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In conclusion, i am.. ..,. ... soft
> 
> If you're interested I wrote an ATLA fic not that long ago, and started another fic that belongs sorta in this 'verse as a set up to the relationship I envision the trio having during the canon timeline.


	14. Sypha scares the absolute SHIT out of some magical beings

Sypha knew that it was rather stupid of her to go alone into the supposedly haunted woods without brining anyone, especially when she’d told no one where she’d gone.

It was a rookie mistake that she would typically ascribe to overconfident idiot men, she could admit it, but in her defense she had a  _ really _ good reason. Well, maybe not  _ really _ good. It was a reason, at least. 

She didn’t want to deal with her grandfather.

It wasn’t all bad, not truthfully, but he’d gotten oddly, needlessly protective ever since the werewolf incident. It made no sense to her. If anything she had  _ proved _ just how well equipped she was to deal with that sort of thing.

He’d always been protective, and had the right to between their blue robes and her magic and her very existence as a woman in their world, but she could hold her own. Her magic no longer sputtered out in her fingers, but roared in her palms. She could move water and fire in equal turns, taught herself to manipulate earth and harness lightning. She’d taken part in killing Dracula, faced highwaymen and Hell beasts, fought by the side of a dhampir and a Belmont.

It was a grandfather’s right to worry, but Sypha was more than capable.

She’d only planned to take care of this “haunting” on her own because it sounded like local superstition with just enough actual evidence to be of some substance. 

But however stupid and overconfident she was far from a future of Hell-beast-cults and vampire armies, she hadn’t expected faeries.

She was not at all equipped for faeries, either.

Faeries were tricky bastards and she  _ was _ an idiot for stepping directly into one of their circles half a second after noticing that it was one.

She woke up an undetermined amount of time later, in a room that seemed to be morphed from a tree.

She bit back the instinct to curse in order to better examine the situation she found herself in, and in an effort to keep check on what she said.

The room was wooden, with bark covering the walls and ceiling. Moss grew on the floor and parts of the wall, beneath a creeping, leafy vine. There didn’t appear to be a door under all the foliage, but there was a small window. It was barely as big as her face--showing a lush, flowering forest similar to the woods she’d come from, but supernaturally  _ off _ \--but Sypha could work with it.

No one came past in the next several minutes, so she began her attempt at escape.

Fire wouldn’t catch on the edges of the window no matter how hot she made the flame. Ice wouldn’t so much as dent the wood, even when she used the trick of putting water across the frame first before freezing it. All that accomplished was shards of ice on the ground. She tried lightning with no even a char, and tried bludgeoning it with rock. She resorted to holding a stone in her hands to see if it was the magic that was the problem but there was still no effect.

Sypha huffed, throwing aside the rock and sitting on the ground. The moss was quite comfortable, she could almost doze off…

...she could…

...think of…

...something…

...when she…

...awoke…

...

…

...

Sypha startled up from where she found herself laying, immediately pushing herself to her feet. She slapped herself, tugged at her hair, jumped in place. Falling asleep here would be a  _ terrible  _ idea.

But what else could she really do? None of her magic was working, and she couldn’t really do any other sort of magic without the spells in front of her or some ingredients to work with.

Well, there was one more type of magic she could try. She’d only found success with it in the past few months, having met a Speaker from another caravan willing to give her pointers. It’d certainly fit her setting, as her usual issues with patience had no distractions here.

With a centering breath she placed her hands on the little window and encouraged the wood to  _ grow _ . 

The tree fought her--there was a powerful ward, in the tree, that made it impervious to magic. But the same sort of elemental life magic she was using had been used to shape the wood, before any such resistances had been added. All she had to do was pry into the blockage, digging at it until she could get her grips in the traces of life magic. From there it was just coaxing the window to become larger.

The results were rough around the edges, but big enough for her to squeeze out of.

She tumbled to the forest floor with a grunt, laying on the ground just long enough to catch her breath before pushing herself up.

_ The faerie-wood was beautiful,  _ was the first thing that Sypha could think when confronted with the full force of it. Everything was just slightly too vibrant--rich greens, huge flowers of every color imaginable and maybe even more, leaves velvety and broad. There was something off about all of it, though. Aside from the gnarled edges of her former prison’s window there were no imperfections. Each leaf, even the ones on the ground, were perfectly symmetrical. The trees had no knots or odd whirls in the bark. The flowers were all in full bloom.

Most annoyingly, though useless in the faerie-wood, anyways, was the lack of discernible direction Sypha could tell from the sun. It seemed to be dawn and noon and evening all at once, and the sunlight came from no real direction and all directions at once.

With little other option she picked a way to go at random and began to walk, one hand poised to cast magic at a moment's notice should she need it.

It wasn’t long before she came across someone.

“I haven’t seen you before, little human,” the faerie said, long hair floating around their shoulders and was shifting as if caught in underwater eddies. They had eyes of golden brown, wider than a human would ever hold them open unless caught by surprise.

Sypha held her tongue, fingers poised to attack.

The faerie scrutinized her with those wide eyes, unblinking.

“Who are you?” they asked.

Faeries could steal names, that everyone knew, but it was what else they might take that was the real minefield. It didn’t help that they could sense lies, and famously despised liars.

“I am a Speaker magician, a slayer of Dracula,” Sypha answered. Titles were important in a place like this, where names were to be kept secret.

The faerie tilted their head.

Sypha stared back, jaw set and eyebrows raised for them to make their move.

“Dracula is not dead,” the faerie said.

“Not now,” she agreed.

It was the truth, even as she contradicted herself.

The faerie blinked.

“Follow,” they commanded.

Sypha felt the command roll over her. There was a compulsion there, but one that was more than easy to brush off. Still, she followed for lack of a better option.

As they walked Sypha saw more faeries, from tiny winged sprites to fauns and pointed-eared-near-humans, and everything in between. Among the trees were more flora-shaped homes hidden under the rest of the too-vibrant, too-perfect plant life.

“Stay,” the faerie who she’d first met commanded, as they reached a sort of pavilion-clearing.

The compulsion was just as simple to ignore as the first.

“No,” she said, walking past them towards a particularly large faerie-house with intricately woven branches and flowers around the open entrance, where the faerie had been headed.

_ That _ drew more than a fleeting glance from the other faeries. Nearly all stopped to stare, all of their eyes unerringly unblinking.

Sypha came to a halt as a faerie came from the door she’d been walking towards.

The faerie was beautiful--full, bowed lips of deep red; eyes as black as a moonless night; hair a curled puff of pink around their head, flowers of the same shades so effortless set within they very well may have grown there; skin a rich brown; garment a bright and shifting yellow, rippling like the wind across a field of wildflowers.

They stood before Sypha, tall and ethereal.

Had she been a lesser woman, of weaker will, she might’ve bowed.

As it was, she missed the height allowed to her when she was grown and craned her neck to meet the faerie’s eyes.

“Human child,” the faerie said, eyes nearly perfectly brown and luminance despite their color. “What are you doing outside of your room?”

“I want to go home,” Sypha said, refusing to back up even as the faerie came closer.

The faerie’s mouth moved just slightly. They were amused.

“And just how did you leave your room?”

“The window.”

She could almost see the irritation, despite the lack of facial movement. Perhaps because of it. She didn’t lie about escaping through the window, despite how impossible they thought it was.

“How,” they demanded.

The compulsion was harder to brush off, but Sypha managed with a gentle bite to her tongue. “I want to return to the woods I arrived from,” she said. “Now.”

The faerie’s lips flattened, some of the luminance from their eyes turning inky dark. “I said  _ how _ .”

Sypha scowled to avoid answering, digging her nails into her palm. “And I didn’t answer.”

This time, the faerie’s expression smoothed. The onlookers--silent and unmoving as they were---still seemed to hold their breaths.

“Who are you, human child?”

She gave the same answer she’d given to the first faerie. “I am a Speaker magician, a slayer of Dracula.”

“He is not dead, yet you do not lie,” the faerie said. “You resist our compulsions. Tell me how.”

“I will tell you of my escape through the window, and of the contradiction of Dracula, in exchange for my freedom,” Sypha said. “My freedom, which you will grant as close to the time that I entered your realm as your magic will allow, in the place from which I cross from my earthly realm.”

“Terms that I will accept,” the faerie said.

“It’s a deal?”

Though perhaps not trying or able to weasel out of the terms that way, the faerie still twitched and agreed, “It is a deal.”

Sypha nodded. It was a deal. “I have slayed Dracula in my past. I may still kill him in this future, if history repeats.”

The faerie’s eyes leeched their brightness further. Instead of a night sky--shining despite the lack of moon--it was now like looking into the depths of a deep well, in the middle of a dark night, with no water at the bottom to reflect anything. Sypha had toed the line of cryptic and explanation, but it was decipherable with enough thought and weighing of possibilities.

“As for the window, I used magic.”

“Explain further,” the faerie demanded and the compulsion was faint enough that Sypha knew they’d given up on even attempting it properly.

“I used life magic to make the tree grow the window larger,” she said.

“Impossible,” the faerie said, immediately. “There are wards against magical tampering.”

Sypha grinned, pride coloring the revelation of her cleverness. “Yes, but there was life magic used to form the structure  _ before  _ the ward. I used the traces of life magic to circumnavigate them.”

The faerie-onlooker gasped and twittered. The pink-haired faerie’s circle-wide eyes narrowed to slits. They reached towards Sypha’s face, and brushed their hand a fraction of a centimeters away from actually touching Sypha cheek.

“Your natural magic is of fire, and of ice.”

Sypha steadily met their gaze. Two elements rare enough, much less two so conflicting in nature, much less so powerful. The faerie could easily sense the power, Sypha was sure, as well as the strength of both.

Natural magic was not the only magic that a person could learn, but it would always be weaker than their natural magic. Yet Sypha had used powerful life magic to manipulate her prison.

“Have I met the terms?” Sypha challenged, knowing she had.

The faerie stepped back, and with the slightest ripple the onlooking faeries all fell into silent stillness.

“Yes,” they said, blinking more than once, slowly, as if to clear their vision. “You have.”

Sypha floundered awake in the mortal forest she had left, scant feet from the faerie-circle she had accidentally entered. She would guess it had been only a few hours since she’d gone into the faerie-wood, if the day was the same, based on the sun alone.

She stood and brushed her robes of dirt, skirting the faerie circle carefully as she headed back to the camp her caravan had made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The faeries: "Listen. To. Me."  
> Sypha: "no✨"
> 
> Also Sypha, waking up in the mortal realm after getting kidnapped by faeries for a good few hours: "chill"
> 
> In all honestly I wrote everything but the first few paragraphs by hand and then immediately typed it up and posted it soooooo I'm doing great mentally and physically, my hand doesn't hurt at all lmao. I also remembered that Sypha is literally about twelve years old for the entirety of this about halfway through and lowkey choked because it makes the whole thing so much better because these faeries are like, okay, a random human child what's she doing wandering around, and then she scares the shit out of them by the sheer force of her power without even /using any magic/. I may have overpowered her, but fucking fight me about it honestly. As always, she deserves it.


	15. Hector and Isaac!!

Having Hector and Isaac around the castle—or rather, having a version of Hector and Isaac who didn’t know Adrian or had lived through twelve more years the way that he knew from them—was an adjustment. Less or maybe more than his parents, Adrian wasn’t quite sure. He had grown used to the reanimated pets and the eerie way in which Isaac would sit and stare with perfect stillness. He expected Hector to easily accept physical contact when he casually brushed past, though, and was often caught off guard by how Isaac wouldn’t roll his eyes when someone made a less-than-astute observation.

Adrian hadn’t told them, either, that he knew some future version of them. They were led to believe that Dracula sought them out for their forging, and wanted to patron them. Adrian had no illusion that Isaac at the least hadn’t seen through the excuse—he had taken years to accept that forging was innate rather than learned. It was enough, though, to get them here and have them stay.

It was also strange, after so long in the castle with his mother and father and guests like before, to add Hector and Isaac in.

It made him miss the week-long visits that Hector and Isaac would take, when they passed near enough to justify a stop. Sometimes just for the pleasure of visiting. 

They had been accompanied by their gaggle of pets—all undead vermin, as Trevor called them, though Adrian knew he had a particular soft spot for them given the way he threw them scraps and let them climb up onto his lap, from the tiniest kitten to the massive shaggy mountain dog that thought itself a lap pet. Adrian knew Isaac held no love for the animals, not in the way that Trevor definitely did despite the denial, but he still treated them all with gentleness for Hector’s sake.

Those weeks were filled with booze and fine foods and sweets, dancing and singing and stories, and laughter that seemed to nearly fill the rooms. It was a rarity to hear laughter in the castle, before his mother’s death, despite that being not so much in the nearly year and a half that Trevor and Sypha had come to live there, but to  _ fill _ such large spaces was nearly impossible for only them three. 

As the days passed and these unfamiliar, younger versions of the men Adrian knew grew to be more comfortable and familiar, Adrian also began to realize that he didn’t really miss those old visits as much as he thought he did. It was mostly nostalgia making him long for it, and the closeness of Sypha and Trevor. Truly, those visits had been mostly for the benefit of the two forgemasters, who were surely better off in the chaotic ruins of Wallachia than the one controlled by the church, but they certainly weren’t welcome. 

The fact that Castlevania—in as much of disrepair as one might expect from the throwing-through-walls fighting that had occurred, and ancient as it was—was a true safe haven was...depressing. Still true, perhaps, even in this younger era, but tragic in its own way.

In this younger era there were still pockets of safety. Beacons of hope and goodness to be found in old women's cottages and in peaceful little mountain villages and in kind strangers on the road. In Belmont safe houses and Speaker caravans still strong and robust, too, he knew. In the time he came there were few old women in cottages or unscathed little villages or kindness to be found on the road. The Belmont safe houses had been long-since dilapidated and Speakers caravans across the continent, but especially in the region, had taken hard losses.

These younger versions of Hector and Isaac weren’t too bad, either.

The age difference between himself and them was more noticeable now that he was eleven and physically appeared fourteen to Hector’s sixteen and Isaac’s seventeen. It didn’t matter much, though, not when both were so terribly undersocialized they barely understood how that mattered and just went along with the cues that Adrian and his parents were giving.

Hector was still followed by his pets—fewer than in the future, but no less odd through their undead-ness. There was one cat that clung to him particularly, and two dogs that were constantly at his heel, but at least a half dozen more wandered the castle. Adrian had a growing fondness for a skinny little white cat that hung around his personal rooms and curled up by his hip when he laid down for the night. She was old and boney, but she was a sweet scrap of fur.

When Adrian’s father had arrived at Hector's old cottage, he had little to do in order to win Hector over—just as Adrian had expected. It only took an afternoon of talking, an interest in the work Hector was doing, and Hector shyly asking if he could bring his pets along for Dracula of all people to have the boy’s trust.

Isaac, slowly, was coming about to the dry sense of humor Adrian was used to. It was less maudlin than he had once known it, but most things in this time were. It was a good thing, knowing what few things he did about Isaac’s...training.

The stories he had told, always in the deepest dregs of a bottle, were horrific. Plenty came from years younger than he was now, but the most terrible had apparently happened not long after his apprenticeship began. He never spoke much on the details, but Adrian knew the man who had declared himself his master had taken him in, clothed him and treated his wounds and fed him all in order to create a sense of indebtion. It had lasted for almost a year before Isaac had finally snapped and killed him, taking over his workshop and books and fully practicing the arts of necromancy the way only a true born forgemaster could.

Isaac had been withdrawn and...frightened, almost, of every shadow, even if he was too stubborn to show it openly. That had changed significantly, luckily.

Adrian’s mother had taken a very  _ mothering _ tone towards them, too.

Adrian hadn’t been able to help himself and had laughed at the face Isaac made the first time Lisa hugged him, and the startled-rabbit stiffness that Hector had gotten in the first week or two of Lisa casually brushing his hair away from his face to tie back with a spare ribbon, and the way his father sighed when a tiny calico kitten with literal ribs showing through her fur climbing her cape and perching on his shoulder, puffing up with self satisfaction when she reached the top.

He also thought he knew what his parent’s exchanging of glances were, when he first told them about the two forgemasters. It was his mother’s subtle way of saying “they sound like they need a family” and his father agreeing that they would take them in and treat them as such if they needed it.

Ridiculous, really. Sweet, too, in a way.

Having two more people at meals, alongside his mother and father, at the least, made it easier to reconcile that this was not the past nor was it the future. It was his new present.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow I hate this but this chapter wasn't getting any better the longer I waited to write it so take it as it is please and know that the next chapter with Adrian will have a lot more plot development and hopefully dialogue. I might even rewrite this at some point in the future, or make heavy edits, but for now I'm fine with it.
> 
> If you like Star Wars I highly recommend checking out my other fics as that is primarily what I've been writing for the past few months since I last updated this fic, and probably will still be my focus (I'm going to still finish this fic, I just have some lower motivation for it at the moment!)

**Author's Note:**

> I have a lot of inspiration for this at the moment, but not too much written in fic form! Every comment and kudo gives me all that much more desire to push past my ADHD to actually get it written!
> 
> [You can find my tumblr here!](https://omegros.tumblr.com) I post updates and some funny stuff about this verse!
> 
> Edits made 3/14/2020


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